


Absit Iniuria Verbis

by BigBloodyShip



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Abusive Relationship, I don't know what I'm doing, Inaccuracy abound, M/M, Non-Graphic Sex, mild violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-27
Updated: 2013-04-14
Packaged: 2017-11-27 04:48:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 33,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/658174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BigBloodyShip/pseuds/BigBloodyShip
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James Bond has travelled across the globe and back and has seen many beautiful things in his life, but nothing in the world can compare to this. </p><p>The story of a Double-0 agent, his quartermaster, secrets, lies, love, inescapable truths, the inevitability of time, and at least a hundred things left unsaid.</p><p>"Absit iniuria verbis," the Latin phrase to express a desire for absence of injury from one's words.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Nomen Nescio

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've actually never written anything before, so you'll have to forgive me for the mediocre quality of this whole thing...whatever it is. Anyway, it'll be a couple of drabble/vignette-type things per chapter to build the story. Sorry it's a wee bit of a mess! The rating and warnings are subject to change.
> 
> "Nomen nescio" is Latin for "I don't know the name."

 

* * *

 

James likes to look at Q as he works when he thinks the boy doesn’t notice.

He stands behind the glass doors, still and silent and out of sight, and watches him type away at his computers. Q is always moving, never stationary, never sitting down. His fingers flutter across the keyboard, they dance with an unsettling grace like they have a mind of their own. He slides easily between the main computer and the variety of laptops assembled in a neat row, as nimble and light on his feet as any field operative. He blinks quickly and often, and every now and then, he wets his lips with his tongue – an action that James finds maddening.

Sometimes he wonders what it would be like to kiss Q’s lips, which are undoubtedly far softer than his own. Q is a young, fine-boned, pretty little thing, and James is secretly glad that he is not a field operative and rarely has to leave the MI6 headquarters. He bristles at the thought of Q, who looks so fragile, being tossed into the field. He is glad that the boy will never be subject to the same horrors that he has seen. He is glad that he will never have to learn what it is like to kill another man. He is glad that he will never spend sleepless nights in a city on the other side of the world. But above all, James is glad that Q is safe and well out of harm’s way.

But James doesn’t quite give Q the credit he deserves. Perhaps it’s that incongruously sentimental, protective streak within him. Q is not defenceless – he is far from it. His mind is as sharp as the edge of a blade, and his work on a computer cuts Britain’s enemies just as deeply. James can feel himself becoming increasingly intrigued by his clever quartermaster. He is an enigma, something that James can’t quite puzzle his way through. He is Q for “Question,” because there is so much yet so little that James Bond knows about him, and he has never met another person who has so easily, yet so unknowingly, captured his interest. 

 

* * *

 

They stand together before the charred ruins of Skyfall.

Q stares at the eerie shell of a house – what used to be a _home_ – that is now nothing more than the ghost of a past that James can only remember as a dream. James looks at Q, tries to decipher the passive expression, but sees nothing.

He turns his own gaze to the blackened skeleton of his past. He walks forward, slowly, takes in everything around him, with Q following close behind. He wonders if he should be thankful or disturbed at his lack of remorse for what has happened to the home that his mother and father had once proudly maintained. Everything has a beginning, and everything has an end. Skyfall’s time had come, and James wonders if his time will come soon, too.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Q bend over. He turns, and sees the young quartermaster picking something up out of the ashes. He gently brushes the soot off of it with his sleeve, and smiles wryly.

“Is this you, 007?”

He holds up a framed photograph. His mother and father are smiling out at him, and then James sees himself. He is taken aback for a moment. He has seen so much of the world and sometimes he feels so old and so tired that he’s forgotten that he had once been a little boy. A young and innocent little thing. Free from worry, shoulders light and bearing no burden. Happy.

“Yes,” he says finally, “And my mother and father.”

Q looks at the photograph for another moment. He smiles again, before handing it to James. Their fingers brush as James takes it. As he holds it, he thinks, sentimental things have such a strange way of surviving the most ferocious disasters. He breaks the glass in the frame and takes the photograph out, slipping it into his jacket.

“I’m sorry,” Q says curtly. His voice clipped and professional, but James knows that Q is not one of those who have been trained to keep emotions at bay. He has not abandoned humanity. He means what he says. “It’s a real shame, to lose such a lovely house. Everything that happened here – I’m sorry that things transpired the way they did, 007.”

James smiles at his quartermaster.

“Don’t be sorry,” he replies, “I never liked this house very much at all.”

They walk back to the car together. 

 

* * *

 

It’s late at night and Q is one of the only ones left at headquarters. Most of everyone else has gone home to their families, to kiss their beloveds and to play with their children. James never had that before, and he often wonders what it would be like. He also wonders if Q, who almost never leaves the office, is the same – no family to return to, nothing waiting for him at home.

James finds himself wandering into the lab. He’s already made up an excuse for coming to see Q so late at night – a baseless request for new equipment that he doesn’t actually need. Q is loyal, and he promptly meets any requests that James might have without questioning his motives and sees that he is satisfied with his new equipment, but he is also clever, and James wonders if Q sees right through him, but makes him the unnecessary equipment anyway simply because he can.

But there’s no need for paltry excuses tonight.

When James slips through the glass doors, all is quiet. No-one is in sight. For a moment, he thinks that Q may have gone home after all. But then he sees the boy, fast asleep at his desk, face buried in his arms and dark hair a tousled mess. James approaches quietly, and when he nears the sleeping Q, he takes note of the still-steaming cup of Earl Grey tea sitting on the desk.

James watches Q sleep, listens to the sound of his soft breathing. If he listens hard enough, he thinks he can hear the sound of his heart beating, too. There is a chill in the office. James takes off his coat and drapes it over Q’s shoulders. He leans down, brushes his lips against his temple. Q makes a small, groggy noise and shifts. James tenses, but Q does not stir again.

_I wish you’d tell me your name._

_I wish you’d tell me who you are._

All his questions go unsaid, but they hang in the air nevertheless as he turns and leaves the office briskly, closing the glass doors noiselessly behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, there was the first bit. Terribly sorry for any inaccuracies or any bits that seem out-of-character. That's why it's called "fiction," I suppose.


	2. Fere Libenter Homines Id Quod Volunt Credunt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here's the second bit of this...story...or whatever it is. I've tried to keep my language as neutral as possible, so some things might sound awkward - I don't want to make people feel alienated, so I've done my best to balance "British" English with "American" English. I know James Bond is quintessentially British, but I've heard American fans saying that the "British-ness" can sometimes feel a bit exclusive, so I've done my best to solve that problem. I don't really know how well it turned out, or if it's even very noticeable at all, so if terms feel strange, that might be why. Thanks for understanding. 
> 
> "Fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt" is a Latin phrase meaning literally that men believe what they want to believe - in other words, belief is shaped by desire.

 

* * *

 

James has to admit he is surprised when he finds Q alone one night in Q-Branch’s central office, but instead of typing away at his computers, he’s standing in front of an ironing board and is busily pressing the creases out of a shirt. Behind him, there’s a small rack, on which are hung a variety of garments.

“Can I help you, 007?” Q asks without looking up from his ironing, “If you’re here with another of your unusual requests, I’m afraid you’ll have to wait until this is done. It won’t be long. You may have a seat, if you’d like.”

“That won’t be necessary,” James says casually, “I just noticed the lights were still on thought I’d come to take a look at some new weaponry. Just out of curiosity.”

Q gives him a sour look.

“Normally, I don’t like Double-0s looking at projects before they’re done, but I don’t suppose it would hurt, if you’re that curious. Unfortunately, I don’t have anything particularly exciting for you to see today, but there are some drafts and sketches on my desk, if that interests you at all.”

“I’m sure I’ll find it quite interesting indeed,” James smiles, and moves to Q’s desk, where a neat stack of folders have been placed. Idly, he flips one open to look at the meticulously done sketches inside. He glances back over his shoulder at Q, who is still absorbed in his ironing.

“Isn’t this a little below your dignity?” he asks, “Doing the Double-0s’ laundry?”

“I do whatever is needed to ensure that all Double-0’s go into the field properly equipped,” Q replies curtly, “Including making sure that they have clean clothes to wear. In fact, I have something of yours right here to return to you. You can take it with you now, if you’d like.” He goes to the rack behind him, and takes a coat from one of the hangers – the coat James had placed over Q’s shoulders when he had found him asleep in his office the previous night.

“Did you give it a wash?” James asks.

Q nods.

“I ironed it as well.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“But I did.”

James doesn’t know whether or not Q wants to be thanked, so he says nothing. Q gives him another one of those maddeningly enigmatic smiles.

“I’m finished here, so I’ll be leaving now,” he says, folding up the ironing board and kicking it under his desk. You’re welcome to stay longer if you’re not done looking at the designs, but don’t forget to lock the room before you leave. Good night, 007.”

As Q turns to leave, James reacts on impulse.

“Wait.”

Q stops, and looks at James curiously, head cocked slightly to the right. It’s strangely endearing, James thinks. Q stares at him expectantly, and James doesn’t know why he finds it so difficult to be his suave self when he’s standing in front of his quartermaster.

“Are you going home?”

Q raises an eyebrow.

“Where else would I be going?”

“Let me drive you.”

Q shrugs half-heartedly.

“Fine,” he says, “Beats the tube.”

Both of them are silent as they drive through London, aside from Q’s occasional “Turn here.” The young quartermaster’s gaze is fixed outside the window, watching the rain hit the glass windowpane as the city’s lights zip past with a passive expression. James sneaks a look at him every so often, and wonders what he’s thinking. He imagines that Q’s mind must be a fascinating place, and he longs to unravel every mystery that is hidden within it. But he knows how well Q guards his secrets. He has surrounded himself with impenetrable firewalls.

“Stop here,” Q finally says, and James pulls up in front of a brick building. He looks up at the rows of windows, some lights still on, and wonders which of these flats is the one that Q lives in.

Q thanks him politely for the ride, and opens the car door.

“Wait,” James says suddenly, “I’ll walk you to the door.”

“It’s only a few steps, 007. There’s no need.”

“It’s raining.”

Q laughs dryly. “This is London, 007. It’s _always_ raining.”

But James has always been a stubborn man. He grabs an umbrella from the back seat and steps outside the car, opening the umbrella and walking briskly to the passenger side. He helps Q out, and makes sure that not a single drop of water touches his quartermaster.

“Get closer to me,” James says, “It’s a small umbrella.”

Before Q can protest, he puts an arm around his shoulders and pulls him close. Q says nothing and makes no move to resist, and they walk quickly to the door together, safe from the rain. When they reach the door, Q pulls away from James. He straightens his cardigan and gives him a smile that is polite, and nothing more.

“Thank you, 007.”

They stand there awkwardly for a moment, both unsure of what to say or do next. James contemplates kissing Q. But he dismisses the thought as quickly as it had come. What a cliché – kissing at the door in the rain. James doesn’t like clichés, although he employs them quite often in fancy bars halfway across the globe. He doesn’t particularly think that Q would like clichés, either.

Finally, Q gestures awkwardly at the door.

“I don’t suppose you’d like to come up to my flat for a cup of tea?”

“On the contrary,” James replies smoothly, “I’d like that very much.”

 

* * *

 

They are sitting in Q’s flat, each nursing a cup of Earl Grey tea. James wonders vaguely if Q ever drinks anything else, and considers asking, but holds his tongue.

James had to admit that he was surprised by the interior of Q’s flat. The walls are tasteful shade of forest green, and most of the furniture looks antique. He had been expecting sleek and minimalist monochrome furnishings, but he’d guessed wrong. James wonders what other things he thinks about Q are merely misconceptions.

Next to him, Q sets down his cup and leans back against the couch.

“I’m tired,” he says bluntly, “It’s late, 007. You should be getting back to your own place.”

James nods, but is only half-listening. Q notices this, and looks annoyed. James almost laughs at the way his eyebrows knit in irritation. It makes him look like a child in some strange way that James can’t exactly place. He smiles to himself.

“Are you listening to me, 007?”

“Do you ever get tired of calling me that?” James asks, and he places his own empty cup down onto the coffee table, next to Q’s. “Call me James, for once in your life. We’re not in the office.”

“No, we certainly aren’t. But you’re still a Double-0, and I’m still your quartermaster.”

James looks at Q curiously. He reaches out and brushes a stray curl from the boy’s forehead. Q flinches at his touch, and James calmly withdraws his hand.

“Are you afraid of me?” he asks.

Q looks him the eye.

“Yes,” he replies softly, “Yes, I am.”

“Why?”

“You wouldn’t be a very good Double-0 if you weren’t feared, would you?”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“I’m your quartermaster,” Q says, and he holds his gaze, “I’m contractually obliged to build equipment for you, not to answer your silly questions – “

“Tell me your name.”

Q looks startled at the abrupt request – more like a command, in its succinct manner of delivery. He turns away from James and looks at his hands, which are folded neatly in his lap. He has such lovely fingers, James thinks, graceful and nimble fingers that have produced streams of computer code, talented fingers that have effortlessly infiltrated enemy intelligence and could bring down entire regimes within matter of seconds.

“Tell me your name,” James repeats.

“Q.”

“You know what I mean. Your _real_ name.”

“You are 007, and I am Q,” Q says stiffly, “There is nothing else to be said. I have no inclination to divulge any further information to you.”

“ _Tell me_.”

“Are you threatening me?” Q asks sharply, and James wonders if Q is frightened. If he is, he is hiding it extraordinarily well – an admirable talent. He would expect no less from his quartermaster.

“No,” James chuckles, “I would never.”

 Q is still and silent, and slowly, James reaches out and tilts his face towards him with a finger, makes Q look at him in the eyes. Q boldly meets his gaze, and James tries to see past the lenses of his glasses, tries to see past the surface of his defiant eyes, tries to see into his mind. He sees nothing.

So he leans in and kisses Q on the lips.

Q makes a muffled, startled sound against James’ lips, and James tilts his head, trying to deepen the kiss, but Q is fighting him, his lips pursed tightly together, denying him access. Q’s hands press frantically against his chest, trying to push him away, but James encircles his wrists easily with his own hands and traps him against the back of the couch. Q jerks his face away and struggles wildly to free his wrists from James’ firm grip.

“What the hell are you playing at!?” Q cries, and James admits to being shocked to hear the evident panic in his voice. “Let go of me!”

James slowly releases him, and Q scrambles off the couch and hastily readjusts his glasses, which had been knocked askew. His lips are bruised and his hair is dishevelled, and he is looking at James with an expression of nothing short of terror.

They are both silent, save Q’s quick, scared breathing. He knows that if he wanted to, James could overpower him easily. It would be child’s play for him. James doesn’t know what to say. Words fail him.

“You wanted it,” he finally says.

Q looks horrified.

“How _dare_ you,” he says, and James doesn’t think he has ever heard Q angry before. Annoyed, yes, but never angry. Not like this. Not like he is now. “How dare you presume such a thing about me? You know absolutely _nothing_ about me, 007. But I know what this is. You’ve done this before to countless other hapless souls who didn’t know better, haven’t you? You’re trying to beguile me with your charms and your good looks and –”

“And what if I am? Is it working?”

Q stares at him contemptuously.

“You’re trying awfully hard, 007, but you’re not as smooth as you think you are.”

James isn’t used to being denied by woman, nor man. He’s Bond, James Bond – and James Bond always gets what he wants. The feeling is surprisingly sickening. He has always been in control, has always been so sure of himself, and has always been confident that he can always get his way. His mind reels as he struggles to find the right words, some witty and devastatingly charming comeback that will bring Q straight back into his arms. They always come back. But nothing particularly clever comes to mind, only short, brutish words.

“Don’t get smart with me,” James says, “You wanted it, and you still do, with every fibre of your being.” He is painfully aware of the fact that he is trying to convince himself more than he is trying to convince Q that Q indeed wants all of this. He stands up and takes a step towards the young quartermaster. Q shrinks back, and James is acutely aware that he is frightening the boy, but he can’t stop himself. He is terrified, himself – terrified that the one thing he wants the most is the one thing he can never have.

“I know exactly what you’re like, 007,” Q says, and he is obviously fearful – he knows what James is capable of – but he stands his ground, and manages to meet James’ eyes. It’s an admirable feat. “I was warned about you, you know. You cannot tell me what I want or don’t want, and I will _not_ be another one of your silly little tarts or another conquest of the infamous James Bond. I’m not that stupid, and I’m not that kind of person. You know I’m not.” 

“You said that I know nothing about you,” James breathes. He has Q trapped against the wall now, one arm planted on either side of him, hands pressing against the forest green wallpaper, barring his potential escape. “But we’re both aware that I know more than you want me to, aren’t we?”

“Get out,” Q says, blinking rapidly, “Get out of my flat, or I’ll scream.”

“Then scream,” James challenges him, “Go on. Do it.” He stares Q down, watches the way he tries to shrink against the wall in a futile attempt to put more distance between them. Q hesitates and purses his lips. He doesn’t scream, James notes with satisfaction, but at the same time, he does not yield. Their eyes are still locked.

“Leave, 007,” he says calmly, “I have no desire to make things messier than they need to be. Leave now and I will tell no-one of what you have done and said tonight. Otherwise, I will inform M immediately, and you will be promptly dismissed from MI6.”

“You wouldn’t,” James says incredulously, appalled at Q’s nerve. “Nobody would believe you.” He had never really thought of his quartermaster as one being keen to using blackmail. But he was, after all, very clever.

“Try me, 007. You have a reputation. I assure you, it wouldn’t be difficult or others to believe me at all.”

Both of them are silent. Q’s gaze remains fixed on his, unrelenting, and James is surprised at the fortitude of his young quartermaster. He feels strangely proud for no particular reason. He is James Bond, after all and he will always have the best – the best weapons, the best vehicles, the best alcohol, the best sex, the best quartermaster.

“Leave,” Q repeats, “Please.”

James can tell that Q is frightened. Who could blame him? Slowly, he backs away. Q stays where he is, huddled against the wall. Q was terrified of him. Q believed that the strange sensations that James feels deep in his chest upon the mere sight of him were nothing more than lust. Q truly believed that James would readily hurt him. Oddly enough, though, James doesn’t see the face of prey that has just narrowly escaped the ravenous jaws of a predator, but he sees a warrior who has just defeated an enemy. Something inside James stabs viciously at his heart. He suddenly feels rather disgusted with himself – ashamed, even. He can’t say that it’s an entirely new feeling, and he can’t blame Q for any of this.

He says nothing as he turns and leaves, slamming the door behind him. But Q’s words continue to echo in his mind, gnawing at him, tearing into him.

_You know absolutely nothing about me, 007._


	3. Si Vis Pacem Para Bellum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...And, here's Part III. Sorry it's going a wee bit slowly right now. Both the pace and the action will pick up shortly, I promise! I really hope I'm not boring you all. 
> 
> "Si vis pacem para bellum" is the Latin phrase meaning something along the lines of "If you want peace, then prepare for war."

  


* * *

  
James Bond hates clichés, but he buys a bouquet of flowers anyway and leaves them at Q’s desk.

They’re roses, much too red for James’ liking. He had never been particularly fond of the colour, even if he sees it much more than he should on his own hands. Nevertheless, he had spent a full hour perusing the selection at the florist, and had finally decided that there was no other colour that incited a stronger feeling within the deepest recesses of his mind. Red was raw and potent. Red was ageless. There would always be red on his hands, red in his record, red everywhere – he supposed it was useless to try avoiding it.

Q is making a point to avoid him. He is terribly elusive and can make himself disappear completely if he wants to, and James doesn’t see him for the entire day. He passes by the lab at the end of the day when everyone is packing up and getting ready to go home for the night and steps through the glass doors. He turns on the light. The roses are where he has left them, untouched and red as ever.

Three days pass, and Q is still doing a marvellous job of avoiding him. James is sure he could find him if he wanted to, but he doesn’t try. He isn’t sure that he’d know what to say when the time came. The roses are still sitting on the desk, limp and wilting. James storms in, and whispers surround him as he grabs the dying roses and sweeps his way back out with a little more ferocity than he had intended.

He throws the roses purposefully into the rubbish bin and stalks to his car. He doesn’t know why he is so frustrated, so angry, so confused. He doesn’t know why his chest feels like a hot, compressed mess. He is 007, for god’s sake. He is above emotions.

Isn’t he?

Damn MI6 to hell for appointing this boy as quartermaster.

He spends a sleepless night alone, staring at the ceiling, hearing Q’s voice echoing over and over again through his mind. It reverberates within his skull and seeps into his brain until his head starts to spin.  
  


* * *

  


James visits the florist again, but this time, he buys white roses.

He wants to begin again with a blank slate. A fresh start. Clean hands and a clean conscience devoid of any traces of red.

As expected, Q is still nowhere to be found, but James is not deterred. He refuses to surrender. If it’s a war Q wants, then it’s a war he’ll get, and James is ready to roll up his sleeves and go to battle. M gives him a disapproving look as he walks through the front door with an armful of white roses, but he says nothing. James knows that he has undoubtedly noticed the rift that has grown between himself and his quartermaster, but he intends to repair it before M can scold him once again in that infamous manner of his.

This time, James doesn’t care that everyone is watching. He doesn’t care that everyone is whispering. He leaves the roses on Q’s desk and exits without a word.

James isn’t a man of many words, but there are so many things that he wants to tell Q - how he wishes he hadn’t been so selfish, how he longs to kiss him again, how he feels an inexplicable need to keep him safe by his side, how he wants to make things right between them, how he would never do anything to hurt him, how he regrets always being unable to say what he means. How he has been utterly captivated by the beguiling enigma that is his brilliant young quartermaster.

Q is an intelligent boy.

He doesn’t need words to know how terribly sorry James is.

When James passes the lab again that night, Q is back at his usual post, typing calmly away at his keyboard as if nothing out of the ordinary has transpired. Behind the customary mug of steaming Earl Grey, the roses have been arranged neatly in a plain glass vase.

 

* * *

 

James catches Q in the corridor just as he is locking up and getting ready to leave.

 “What happened when I was in your flat will never happen again,” James says bluntly.

They are the only ones standing in the corridor. Most of the lights in the building have already gone off, and most of everyone has already left. Q tucks his keys into his coat pocket and turns to face James, expression unreadable in the dim light.

“Let’s not discuss it, 007.”

“I made a mistake.”

“Indeed.”

“I need you to forgive me.”

Q raises an eyebrow. “ _Need_ is a very strong word,” he remarks, “And if I forgive you, what then? How will you interpret that? What were your words? Ah, yes – do you think it will mean that I _want it_ , 007?”

“No,” James answers. He is treading on thin ice. “No. It will mean whatever you want it to.”

“Want, want, want,” Q says snidely, and his voice is laced with impatience, “Why are you always saying that? You’re like a broken record, trying to pin down what you want, and what I want – talking of which, if you ever try to tell me again what it is I want, you’ll be sorry. What is it exactly that we want, anyway? Who knows? Nobody does. It’s such a subjective word. We never really know what we want, do we, 007? Does it even matter? Therefore, I assume that you must _need_ me to forgive you. Am I correct?”

James nods. Oddly enough, he likes the arrogance in Q’s voice, the brashness that lies in wait beneath the curt exterior, the way that he dominates the direction of their conversation. He had to admit that he hadn’t really been expecting this.

“You know I hate being wrong. But I’ll readily admit it this time. I’m not perfect, Q, and I make mistakes just as you do. I hope you know how sorry I am that any of it happened. You might not believe me, but I care about you. I can’t be at ease until I’m sure that you haven’t been...traumatised by my transgressions.”

“Traumatised?” Q repeats. He chuckles. “As if, 007. You must give me more credit. Traumatised by you? Don’t flatter yourself. They ought to make controlling one’s ego part of the Double-0 training regimen.”

That makes James smile.

“Perhaps they should.”

“Very well, 007,” Q says curtly with a wry smile, “I’ll forgive you, if only to make sure you’ll be able to sleep properly at night. MI6 needs its agents in top form.”

Q looks so lovely in this light that James wants to kiss him again, but he stops himself. It’s hardly appropriate right now.

“I’ll be going now,” Q tells him, “You should go home, too.”

“I’ll drive you back, if you’d like.”

“Not tonight. Perhaps another time.”

He turns to leave, and James watches him start walking down the corridor, his footsteps echoing in the emptiness.

“Q.”

Q stops, turns his head, and cocks it in that endearingly attentive way of his.

“Yes, 007?”

Words fail James. Q is looking at him – straight at him, straight through him. He is quite sure that there is nothing that Q does not see right now. In this moment, Q can read him as easily as a string of computer code. James grapples with himself for a moment, until he finally manages to grasp the words that he is looking for.

“I hope you know that I would never do anything to hurt you. It was never my intention.”

They are both silent for a moment. It’s almost unbearable.

“You know, 007,” Q observes, “You’re awfully decent when you’re actually making an effort to be a human being. You should do it more often.” He gives him a cryptic smile and turns away.

“Good night, James.”

James realises that this is the first and only time that Q has ever addressed him by his name.

He isn’t sure what to think as he watches Q disappear down the corridor.


	4. Si Vis Amari Ama

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lucky for you, things are shifting a wee bit into a different direction. Re-reading my work, I find that my writing is a bit odd - I want to keep a "quiet" tone, but at the expense of excitement, it seems, so I really apologise that things tend to get rather bland. Thank you so much for all the comments, by the way! They're very encouraging. 
> 
> "Si vis amari ama" means something along the lines of "If you want to be loved, then love" in Latin.

 

* * *

 

There are lots of things that James likes about Q.

He likes his neatly tailored trousers, in tweed especially. He likes his prim little cardigans. He must have one in every colour of the rainbow. He likes the way his glasses frame his large, owlish eyes, and he likes the way the way his hair sits in a dishevelled mess on top of his head. He wonders what it would be like to run his fingers through those inky curls.

James likes the way Q speaks, soft and polite – sometimes the lilt is amused, sometimes it’s arrogant or irritatingly patronising, and sometimes, James swears that it sounds almost flirtatious, but he doesn’t dare to be certain. There is nothing that is certain about Q, and that fact becomes more and more fascinating to James the more he hears Q's voice. He wonders what it would be like to have that voice whispering sweet nothings in his ear.

He likes the way Q is always a flutter of movement. He likes the way he blinks, rapidly – and even more so when he’s agitated or under pressure. He likes the sound his fingers make when they tap at the keys faster than the speed of light, and he likes the dexterity and purpose that goes into every movement of those frightfully skilled hands. He wonders what it would be like to hold those hands tightly, to warm them with his own.

He likes the way Q is pretty and sweet. He tends to be rather sarcastic and snarky – geniuses usually are – but he is never unkind and is never condescending. He’s so unlike the rest of MI6 with its sharp, cold, and sleek ends, but he is soft around the edges and there’s a fascinating fragility to him. Everything about him draws James in. His wide eyes, his petal lips, his milk-white skin – even with its spots. He admits it's all rather silly, but still, he wonders what it would be like to have that lovely face as the first thing he sees when he wakes up in the mornings.

_Report to your quartermaster. He will give you what you need_.

James doesn’t like hearing those words. He loves them.

He thinks he might love Q, too.

_You're not happy, are you, James?_ Kincade had asked him at Skyfall, shortly after the former M's death, _You're trying to be strong, but you can't fool me._ _I've known you since you were a little boy._

_I'm not that little boy anymore,_ James had said.

_Perhaps not,_ Kincade had replied after a moment's hesitation, _But this isn't what your mother and father would have wanted for you. I don't know what it is you're doing with your life, and it's not my business to ask about it, but don't you think it's time you started living for yourself? Make yourself happy, James. Throw in the towel and let yourself settle down. Maybe you should get married and have a family. Wouldn't that be nice?_

_It might be,_ James remembers saying _, But I don't know if that kind of life is right for me._

Kincade had been right. There's a ragged, gaping hole somewhere inside him, and it's been there for as long as he can remember, painfully hollow. Maybe Q _can_ give him what he needs. And it's not just equipment James is thinking about. Perhaps what he's needed and wanted all along is for someone like Q to fill in those empty spaces.

 

* * *

 

Something is different about Q one day when he is getting ready to leave for the night.

For one thing, he’s packing up a lot earlier than usual. And, James has noted, he’s been leaving the office much more often than he had in the past. He almost never sees Q asleep at his desk anymore.

He looks neater than usual, if that was even possible, save the obvious exception of his unruly hair, which seems to have a mind of its own and no-one will ever be able to put it under control. James thinks the royal blue cardigan he is wearing this day makes him look particularly pretty.

“You’re looking nice today,” he comments as he leans against Q’s desk, “Are you going somewhere?”

“Yes,” Q says simply. He doesn’t look at James.

“Where are you dashing off to?”

“If you must know,” Q says as he shuts his laptop with a neat _click_ and slides it into its bag, “I’m meeting someone.”

“Who?”

“A _gentleman_ ,” Q replies pointedly, “Who doesn’t ask me stupid questions all the time.”

“You’re saying that I’m not a gentleman?”

Q laughs.

“007,” he says, “You are an absolute brute.”

But there’s no acridity to his voice, no desire to harm or to insult. There’s something else that James is scrambling to discern – a strange sort of tenderness, an obscure sense of intimacy that pulls an unknown heartstring inside his chest. It shouldn’t, but it makes the thought that Q is seeing someone else hurt in unfamiliar ways that James cannot understand. Q has never been the type to divulge details of his personal life to make small talk, no matter how small those details might be. He _wants_ James to know. But why? To tell him to stop pursuing him? To make him jealous? To put himself out of reach? Or is it something else that James is missing entirely? Who is this man that Q is seeing? Is their relationship serious, or is it a casual fling? How long has he been seeing him? Does he treat him well? What kind of a person is he? James really doesn't know. It makes the ache in his chest intensify uncomfortably.

He doesn't ask Q any of the questions that are running at top-speed through his brain.

“Well,” he says instead, and he smoothly puts on a smile for Q’s sake – or his own, perhaps – “This gentleman of yours had better tell you how lovely you look today.”

He thinks he sees Q’s face flush, but he’s not sure.

“Like I said, 007. An absolute brute.”

When Q leaves that night, James considers following him. He wants to see who it is that his mystery of a quartermaster goes to every night. He wonders if he holds Q’s hand and walks him home with an umbrella if it rains, or if he drives him back in an expensive sports car. He wonders if he tells him how utterly perfect he is or if he cares for him as deeply as he should, and he wonders if he kisses him goodbye each night. He wonders what name he calls Q by. He wonders if Q loves his gentleman in a way that he may never love James.

But in the end, he decides not to follow Q because he decides that he would rather not know.

 

* * *

 

“Did you have a nice evening with your gentleman?”

“I did, thank you.”

“How was he?”

“Perfectly charming.”

He is lying.

It is silent between them as Q takes another sip of his tea. There is no-one in the canteen except for the two of them. It feels rather empty, but it's still cosier this way, James thinks. Q looks out the window and watches the rain hit the glass and leave long trails, his fingers wrapped around his mug. James wonders what he’s thinking about.

“What about you, 007?” Q asks, and he smiles cordially at him – a smile that doesn’t quite reach those clever eyes of his – “How was your evening?”

“Fine,” James answers, and he smiles back as he lies through his teeth.

He tries not to remember how it felt like to imagine Q in the arms of another man, how the thought nearly drove him mad, how deeply and pervasively it took root in his chest, how it stayed there and is still there, solid and heavy and weighing him down in ways he had never thought possible. It hurts, more than he dares to admit.

The air is still. Both of them are quiet. Both of them are painfully aware of everything between them that is unsaid and will forever remain so, because neither of them have the courage to do anything about it. The silence is excruciating. Q shifts in his seat. Not once has he looked at James in the eye since they have sat down. Something is wrong. James can feel it. It’s rank in the stagnant air.

“Is your gentleman good to you?” James finally asks.

Q’s face is passive.

“Yes.”

He is lying again.

“Good,” James says with a practised smile, “He should be. He’s a very lucky man. But I’m sure he knows that already.”

Q glances up at him suddenly like he’s desperate to say something. But he holds his tongue and looks away.

“Do you love him, Q?”

Q immediately freezes in his seat. It’s clear that he had not been expecting James’ question in the least. James doesn’t fail to notice the way that he clutches his mug a little tighter, his knuckles whitening. His eyes are fixed on his tea, as if he can see something solid at the bottom underneath all that dark liquid. His tongue flickers out to nervously wet his lips. He blinks – once, twice, three times – and quietly sets the mug down onto the table.

“Yes,” he finally says, voice quiet, “Yes, 007. I do love him.”

He is still lying.

“I’m glad to hear it,” James replies in what even he’ll admit is a shoddy excuse for a cheerful tone. He is a Double-0, but he isn’t perfect. He isn’t a machine. Every now and then, he remembers, as Q had once pointed out, that he is indeed a human. “I really am. I would never have guessed that – ”

“He asked me to marry him, 007,” Q suddenly blurts out of nowhere, “I said yes.”

James is almost humiliated that he hadn’t noticed the ring on Q’s hand until now. It rests on one elegant finger, those fingers that fascinate James so much, and he feels like a bullet has just struck him in the chest. He feels like he has been standing on thin ice, and that it has just cracked and he is plummeting into the dark, cruel depths beneath. He feels like he is bursting. He wants to scream and shake Q by the shoulders and ask him why he is doing this, why he is continuing to see a man who most likely doesn’t treat him like he should, a man who he doesn’t love, and why _for the love of god_ he is going to marry this man.

James could be that man, the man who Q goes to every night. He could be the man who holds his hand and walks him home with an umbrella if it rains. He could be the man who tells him how utterly perfect he is and the man who cares for him more deeply than anything else. He could be the man who kisses him goodbye each night. But he’s not, and he never will be, and that fact has never hurt more than it does now.

"I've been seeing him for a few months now," Q says a little nervously, eyes flickering from his mug to James' face, but their eyes don't meet, "I suppose...I suppose he wants to settle down now."

"What about you? Is that what you want?"

Q sighs.

"What am I always telling you, 007? I'm never quite sure of what I want."

Q isn’t stupid. There is a reason for everything he does, and James wants to shout and tear the room apart until Q explains those reasons to him explicitly. But James Bond is a man of dignified restraint, so instead, with the smile still plastered on his face, painfully empty and agonisingly artificial, he gets up from his seat.

“Congratulations. I’m very happy for you. But I’d best be going now. Enjoy the rest of your tea.”

He turns his back on Q and walks away.

They are both liars and cowards.


	5. Acta Non Verba

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hooray, another update! So quickly, too, right? Feeling rather proud of myself. However, I'll be quite busy for the remainder of the week, so I'm not sure when the next chance I'll get to update this will be. As I read through this chapter, I noticed that some words sounded very awkward, and some sentences simply didn't work. It should be pretty obvious to figure out which bits I'm talking about, so again, I'm very sorry! (This is the part where I attempt to justify my folly by reiterating that this is the first time I've ever attempted writing a fic.)
> 
> "Acta non verba," as you can probably surmise, means "Actions, not words" in Latin. I have an unhealthy obsession with Latin, it seems.

 

* * *

 

James finds Q sitting alone at his desk well after the rest of Q-Branch has gone home for the night.

He looks fragile, jittery, so _tired_. His usually impeccably neat clothes are rumpled, the top few buttons of his cardigan have been sloppily undone, and his inky hair lists to one side. He looks even paler than usual, and dark bags hang under his weary eyes. He is sitting aimlessly in front of a blank computer screen, absently swirling scotch about in a glass. Some of the amber liquid sloshes out, but Q pays no attention.

“Q?”

Q turns to look at James. James steels himself and tries not to show how painful it is to see Q in this state. Bright, sweet Q, smelling like scotch and looking as if he’d not slept in days.

“Ah,” he mumbles, “Hello, 007.” He isn’t so inebriated such that he’s unable to function properly, but his words slur together messily. He reaches into his pocket and produces a cigarette and a lighter. James watches, brows furrowed, as he clumsily attempts to light the cigarette with shaking hands, succeeding only after a brief struggle.

“Smoking indoors is against regulation, you know,” James observes.

“Don’t care,” Q mutters, taking a long drag from the cigarette. James watches the smoke unfurl around his quartermaster’s lovely, but exhausted face as he exhales. The fingers holding the cigarette tremble unsteadily and James fears for a moment that he might drop it.

“Is that M’s scotch you’re drinking?”

“Maybe. Don’t ask how I got it.”

He moves to take another sip, but James stops him. He plucks the glass from Q’s hands, and Q makes an annoyed sound, feebly swatting at James’ hand. James knows better than anyone else what alcohol does to people. It’s not for a sweet, clever young kid like Q. And perhaps that’s what bothers him the most – the uncharacteristic drinking, the smoking that he never knew that Q participated in, the total collapse of the neat and polished professional image he always upheld while working at MI6. He has no doubt in his mind now that something is terribly wrong, something his quartermaster is not telling him.

“Go ‘way,” Q grumbles unhappily, “No exploding pens today. Or tomorrow. Or ever.”

“I didn’t come for equipment,” James tells him, “I came to see if you were alright.”

“I’m fine,” Q says with a dismissive wave of the hand, “Going to see him tonight. Just need scotch, and everything will be fine, just fine, perfectly fine, completely fine…”

But it _isn’t_ fine. James knows exactly who Q is going to see tonight. He feels sick in the pit of his stomach when he realises that Q is trying to get himself drunk before meeting his gentleman. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that there’s clearly something unpleasant about their relationship, and Q had sought out the assistance of alcohol to make things more bearable. Whatever’s going on between them seems to be much more severe than James had originally anticipated, if even someone like Q deliberately drinks himself into this state just so he’ll be able to face his gentleman.

“You don’t have to see him,” James says gently, setting the glass of scotch far out of Q’s reach and taking the cigarette away from him, stamping it out and discarding it. “You don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to do.”

“No, I do,” Q insists loudly, making a vague, wild gesture with his hand, “I _do_ have to. You don’t understand.”

“Q, look at me,” James murmurs, cupping Q’s face gingerly in his hands, “Is he forcing himself on you? Does he hit you?”

“No-one cares,” Q says simply, pulling away from James with a scowl, nearly falling out of his chair in the process. James catches him and wrestles him back into the chair as he squirms uselessly.

“I care.”

Q freezes, looking up at James. His eyes are foggy, but wide and confused. He looks so small and child-like in that moment, and all James wants to do is to hold Q tightly against his chest and keep him safe and secure, but that’s a part of himself that isn’t quite ready to emerge yet.

“You’re odd,” Q finally says, the tipsy lilt still in his voice, “You…You’re not like everyone else – everyone else thinks I’m too young to do this job and that I sucked off some bureaucrats to become the head of Q-Branch. But you don't think that. I like you, 007.” 

James cringes inwardly at Q’s uncharacteristically crude language. Even more confusing is what he’s said after that, though – _I like you, 007_. James doesn’t know what to make of it.

“You’re drunk, Q,” he says softly as he tucks a stray curl behind Q’s ear with the utmost care, “You don’t mean that.”

“I like you,” Q whines persistently, “I really do. You don’t believe me? You’re silly. Silly, but I like you.” He looks around, eyes flickering back and forth in a moment of disorientation before he staggers to his feet. James tries to steady him, but Q pushes him away indignantly with an irritated grunt.

“Gotta go now,” he says as he fumbles for his keys, “He doesn’t like to wait.”

“Don’t,” James finds himself responding immediately, and is he is horrified to hear the imploring tone in his voice. He is bewildered at his own outburst. Fortunately, Q is drunk and probably has not picked up on it. At least, James hopes that he hasn’t.

Q ignores him and stumbles towards the door. James grabs him by the wrist, trying to stop him, but Q pulls sharply away from him, wrenching his wrist out of James’ grasp.

“Listen to me, Q – ”

“Leave me the fuck alone!” Q shouts suddenly, and James has to admit he is shocked. Q has never raised his voice before, nor has he used such vulgarity in his speech before - not to him, not to his subordinates, not to anyone _ever_. The ferocity of it leaves James reeling in confusion, and he stares stupidly at Q, who is glaring back at him with blazing eyes. With an irritated sigh, his quartermaster quickly turns back around and storms out of the office.

James doesn’t know what to do. The right words don’t come to him, and all he can do is stand there in stunned silence, and let Q go.

 

* * *

 

  

One day, exactly one week and three days later – James has been keeping count – Q shows up for work with a split lip, an ugly bruise on his cheek, and angry red marks on his collarbones, which his cardigan is doing only a mediocre job of concealing. Later, James will roll up the sleeves of said cardigan and discover countless other bruises underneath the fabric mottling the pale flesh.

James is inexplicably furious when he sees Q in this state.

Q says nothing about it, and acts as if nothing is out of the ordinary. But James is not so willing to pretend that it isn’t there. He is sickened at the thought that anyone would want to do this to Q, perfect, sweet, clever, pretty Q. Someone has dared to raise their hand against him. Someone has dared to hurt him. It makes the rage in the pit of his stomach bubble and boil until it wells to the surface and bursts through his flesh. His vision is crimson. Everything is aflame.

At the first chance he gets, James pulls Q aside into an empty office. Q does nothing to stop him and lets James lead him in without a single protest, silently watching him close the door behind them.

“Who did this to you?” he asks.

Q shakes his head and says nothing.

“It was him, wasn’t it? Your gentleman.” James is nearly desperate. He caresses his bruised wrists, tenderly touches his lips, holds his face gently with his hands as if he can make the blemishes that stain the youthful face disappear with sheer willpower alone.

Q remains silent.

“What happened? Q, talk to me.”

His quartermaster laughs bitterly.

“He was the way you once were,” he finally says in a voice that sounds disturbingly faint and frighteningly hollow. “He thought he knew what I wanted. The only difference was that he didn’t know when to stop.”

Q is scared of someone. James can feel it, hear it, see it, taste it, and the thought makes him sick. Q had once been afraid of him, and knowing that had brought about a feeling of shame and guilt unlike anything he had ever felt before. It is nauseating, knowing that Q’s gentleman, on the other hand, most likely feels no remorse and sees nothing wrong with his ways. James will not pretend that because of his shame, he can be excused for the mistakes he had made that night in Q’s flat, but at the very least, he had seen how very wrong he was. Nevertheless, the need to protect his quartermaster that is bordering pathological has never been stronger.

“Why?” James asks him, “Why are you doing this? You never loved him, did you? Why do you continue to see him? Why are you going to marry him? You’re young and you’re beautiful, and you could find someone else, someone better, someone who is good to you.”  

“You wouldn’t understand,” Q answers simply. “I couldn’t…”

His voice breaks off, and he turns abruptly away. His hands are shaking, and James knows that he is on the verge of tears, but he is holding them back valiantly. Q is not a Double-0, nothing close to it, and has never been trained the way James has to school himself into concealing emotion. He has always been naturally gifted at it, but now the firewalls he has erected around himself are disintegrating into oblivion. James watches them crumble and fall, and he thinks his heart might be breaking along with them. He has never seen Q like this before and it hurts, it hurts so much.

James takes Q into his arms and cradles him against his chest. Q doesn’t resist, doesn’t pull away. He grips the front of James’ shirt tightly with his fingers, those lovely, fine-boned fingers, and clings onto him as if his life depends on it. Each breath he takes is a shuddering mess, and James can feel him trembling against him. But Q is strong, and tears don’t fall. James has to admit that he is impressed. He holds Q tighter and strokes his hair, the dark curls that are so beautiful in their disorder. He rubs soothing circles on his back with his palm and kisses his forehead as tenderly as he knows how.

“I can try to understand. Nobody should ever be treating you like this, and don’t you ever let _him_ say or think otherwise.”

“It's not your job to protect me,” Q replies sullenly, "You don't need to jump to my defence at the slightest provocation."

“I know,” James tells him, “But I stand by what I told you before. Just as I would never do anything to hurt you, I would never let anyone else hurt you, either. I won’t let him ever touch you again, or even come near you. If he dares lay another finger on you, I swear to god I will kill him.”

“And I stand by what _I_ told you before,” Q says softly, his head resting against James’ shoulder, “You are an absolute brute.”

They are both quiet, savouring the moment of understanding. As always between them, there are so many things that go unsaid, but neither of them needs words to know exactly what the other wishes they had the courage to say aloud.

“I don’t want to go to him tonight,” Q whispers, “Please, 007. I don’t want to.”

“You won’t have to,” James says fiercely. “And if he has anything to say about it, then he can answer to me.”

  

* * *

 

 

Q goes home with James that night. He tells him everything as they drive.

He has been seeing his gentleman for several months now, but they have known each other for even longer. James is surprised to hear it. Q is even better at keeping secrets and moving around undetected than he had originally thought.

His identity has been compromised. His gentleman had once been a close associate of his father’s, but they had fallen out of friendship years ago when Q had still been a child. As Q had grown older and after his father has passed away, his gentleman had doggedly pestered him, making all sorts of advances that Q had been smart enough to slip his way around. But his gentleman had found out, some way or another, that Q works for MI6. He is a powerful man in his own right and owns one of the largest industrial steel companies in Britain. He often makes underhand dealings and has contacts in all sorts of unsavoury places. He could, at a whim, reveal Q’s identity to a number of people who would be perfectly happy to see MI6 lose one of its most valuable resources. And, for queen and country, Q has no choice but to soldier on and stay with this gentleman, who is actually everything but. 

Lately, he has been spending more time with his gentleman because he had demanded it. Q had been trying to keep his distance, trying to end what had been a poisonous relationship from the very beginning, but his gentleman had threatened him, and had hurt him – however, at first, it had nothing that had he hadn’t been able to hide. He’d slap him in the face, pull his hair, twist his arms. The marks left on the flesh would sometimes fade overnight, and the ones that didn’t could be hidden under his clothes.

But the previous night had been different – his gentleman had sensed that something was transpiring differently, and Q had reacted differently, so he had, consequently, beat him differently, with a ferocity and a viciousness unlike any other night.

“Why?” James asks, “What was different?”

Q smiles sadly – an oxymoron that is indeed possible, as James is now discovering. He has never seen an expression so heart-breaking before in his entire life, and he has seen plenty of faces throughout time in all states of human emotion.

“He thinks I love someone else.”

“And do you?”

“Yes. I think I do.”

Q is looking at him now, his gaze strangely melancholy. James isn’t quite sure how to read that gaze, but he reaches over and squeezes Q’s hand comfortingly. Q’s fingers curl gently around his, and he doesn’t let go for the rest of the drive.

When they arrive at James’ flat, he lends him an old dress shirt to wear for the night and lets him sleep in his bed. James’ clothes are a little too large for Q, who has always been on the scrawnier side, but there is something strangely endearing about how his shirt hangs haphazardly off his quartermaster’s slender frame. The boy is asleep almost right when his head hits the pillow. James arranges the blanket so it covers him entirely, and makes sure the windows are closed so he will not be disturbed by a chilly draft.

While Q is sleeping, James sits down at his kitchen table and opens his laptop.

It certainly doesn’t take someone of Q’s mental calibre and skill with computers to do a simple internet search. He easily finds the name of Q’s gentleman, and when he digs a little deeper, he is able to pinpoint his location as well. He makes a mental note of all this information before he turns off the laptop, rolls up his sleeves, and tucks his gun into his jacket.

He makes his way soundlessly to the bedroom. Q is still fast asleep on the bed, curled snugly under she sheets. He watches him sleep for a moment, listens to the sound of his soft breathing. The poor thing looks so frail and breakable, and so utterly exhausted, like he hasn’t slept for days. But he's safe now, and that's all that matters. James kisses him gently on the cheek before he leaves.

After James Bond is through with him, nobody sees or hears from Q’s gentleman ever again. 


	6. Nunc Scio Quid Sit Amor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought I wouldn't have time to update this week, but I was wrong...OK, semi-wrong. This chapter is a wee bit shorter, but it's the best I could do this week, as I've been horribly busy. Thanks for sticking with me!
> 
> "Nunc scio quid sit amor" is Latin for "Now I know what love is."

 

* * *

 

When Q emerges groggily from the bedroom the following morning, James is waiting for him at the table with a steaming mug of Earl Grey. James’ shirt, sloppily buttoned, hangs awkwardly off one of Q’s shoulders. It’s long enough for the hem to brush his bare knees, and the sleeves reach well past his fingertips. It makes his limbs look even spindlier than usual, and Q runs a hand through his riotous mess of hair, trying half-heartedly to smooth it out. It doesn’t really work. James smiles.

“That shirt was always a little large, even for me,” he says, as Q sits down at the chair across from him. _But it looks better on you anyway_ , he wants to add, but he restrains himself from saying it out loud. It does not, however, stop him from thinking it, saying it several times in his mind.

“I’m sorry,” Q apologises as he gratefully takes the tea, “I must look like a mess right now.”

“On the contrary,” James tells him, “You look beautiful.”

“I know what I look like,” Q retorts bitterly, and one of his hands involuntarily moves to touch his face, still bruised and battered from a beating he should never have taken, “Don’t try to coddle me with flattery, 007. Not so early in the morning.”

“I’m not trying to flatter you,” James replies, “I’m telling you the truth.”

“The truth?” Q repeats. He takes a long sip of the tea, and James doesn’t miss the way his shoulders loosen ever so slightly in contentment at the comfort offered by the hot beverage. “And what, 007, could you possibly mean by that?”

“The truth is that I would always find you beautiful, anywhere, any time, and in any state.”

“Is this how you lure hapless women into your bed, 007?” Q asks, his eyebrows crinkling in amusement, “Though, it must work remarkably well, seeing how I was in your bed last night.”

“But not in the way I’d hoped.”

“007,” Q says warningly.

“So uptight,” James chuckles, “I’m only joking,” and Q gives him a disgruntled glare, but when he offers Q more tea, the quartermaster politely and happily accepts.

“Did you sleep well?” he asks him.

Q nods.

“I did. Might have been the best sleep I’ve had in ages. Thank you, 007.”

There is a pause, as Q looks up from his tea at James. His lips turn down the slightest as he props his chin on one hand. It’s quite endearing, James thinks. Then again, there are so many simple things about Q that James finds to be painfully endearing.

“You, on the other hand, didn’t sleep at all, did you?”

“No,” James replies easily. He leans back in his seat and smiles pleasantly. “I was otherwise occupied.”

“Occupied with what?”

“Not much. Just making a bit of a personal statement.”

“It must have been a rather important personal statement for you to have been making it at such ungodly hours,” Q remarks, and he sets his tea back down on the table. “I’m curious. Indulge me, 007.”

“It was quite simple – anyone who wants to hurt you will have to answer to me,” James states easily. Nevertheless, the bruises and marks that are scattered across Q’s face and body are painful for James to look at. Sweet, pretty Q doesn’t deserve any of it. He has done nothing wrong. He never has, and in James’ eyes, probably never will. When he looks at Q’s face, still boyishly innocent, it makes James’ stomach turn when he remembers that there is someone in the world who thinks otherwise. Or rather, there _was_ someone.

“Ah,” Q says, “And you consider that personal?”

James grins.

“Very.”

He leans across the table to kiss Q on the lips.

This time, Q doesn’t pull away.

  

* * *

 

When James has Q in his arms, he can never resist running his fingers through his unruly hair as their bodies press together. At first, Q always swats at his hands in annoyance when he reaches for him, but soon enough, he no longer minds. When he has Q in his arms, he feels content.

When James hears his voice, it’s always a small, yet surprising comfort. Anywhere in the world, Q is with him, and though not physically, it is always enough for him. When he hears his voice, he feels at ease.

When James kisses Q, his quartermaster is always shy and hesitant. His lips feel sweet and soft against his, and he tastes of curious innocence and faint Earl Grey. James knows that he is not the first person that Q has ever kissed, but he is, according to Q himself, the first person that he has kissed and _meant it_. It’s always gentle and tender, because god knows that Q has been mistreated before, and if he could, James would kiss those memories away. Sometimes, they kiss each other breathless. When they kiss, he feels alive.

They don’t make love, not yet. Q isn’t that kind of person, and James understands. The last thing he wants to do is to push Q into doing something that he doesn’t want to, to take advantage of him, to force something himself on him. That's not what they're about. 

He doesn’t mind, though, because simply when they are together, James feels human.

It's good to love and to be loved once again.


	7. Ex Fide Fortis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, it's certainly been a while...I've been re-reading things and I've realised that most of this story centres around dialogue, which might be awfully boring for some of you (even for me, sometimes). But there will be action soon. Not quite yet, but soon, I promise. Sorry for the slow updates, I've been horrendously busy. 
> 
> "Ex fide fortis" is the Latin phrase meaning something along the lines of "Strength comes from faith."

 

* * *

 

James isn’t sure why – perhaps it’s because Q has been mistreated before – but the strange, intrinsic need to protect the boy that he feels has increased exponentially in magnitude. It’s an instinct, rooted deeply within his brain. He cannot feel at ease unless he knows Q is safe. Perhaps he’s being paranoid, but it doesn’t matter. He is determined to be there for Q, whatever that may entail.

By this point, he is certain that he is in love with his quartermaster.

In fact, he’s even gone so far as to entertain the idea of perhaps marrying him one day. It’s a rather strange thing to think about, but James knows it’s highly likely that he’ll die in the field sooner or later. If and when he does, at the very least, he’d be able to leave something for Q, something to ensure that he is looked after. But he dismisses the thought rather quickly. It’s not something he’s ready to seriously consider quite yet.

James stands outside the doorway of Q-Branch’s central office, watching Q type away busily at his computer from afar. He is so absorbed in his work that James doubts he even notices him watching. He supposes that’s the admirable thing about Q. He always gives his work full attention and complete dedication. He is even more invested in his work than before, which is understandable. After the incident with Silva’s computer, the last thing Q would want to do would be to make another fatal mistake.

James continues to watch as 009 approaches Q’s desk. He doesn’t know 009 terribly well, but from what he hears, he’s a rather competent agent. Without looking away from his computer screen, Q takes a box – presumably containing new equipment – out of one of his desk drawers, hands it to 009, and promptly shoos him away. Poor 009 looks almost offended as Q proceeds to ignore him completely and return to his work at the computer.

It’s not as if Q doesn’t care for the agents he equips and monitors. It is far from it, in fact. He merely sets priorities. He’s currently tracking 003 who is on assignment in Bolivia, and he can’t afford to allocate too much attention to 009 at the moment.

009 greets James as he walks out of the doorway, and James returns the greeting with a brief nod. 009 stops for a moment and looks back over his shoulder at Q, before turning back to look at James.

“Frigid little bitch, isn’t he?” 009 comments distastefully.

“Who?”

“Q.”

James’ face stays passive as he gives 009 a long look.

“To be honest,” 009 continues flatly, “I’ve never been too fond of the kid. I find him quite unfriendly. He never speaks to me like the way he speaks to you.”

“How do you mean?”

 “All I have to say is that he has his favourites. It’s not very subtle.”

“I doubt it.”

009 purses his lips thoughtfully.

“I was never too sure why he was even hired in the first place. The last Q was much better. He didn’t make as many stupid mistakes. Sure, this one’s got a pretty face, but what else has he got? You know what people say about him, don’t you?”

“I’m afraid I don’t pay much attention to the baseless rumours that circulate around here,” James replies acridly. 009 picks up immediately on his confrontational tone of voice, but continues on anyway.

“They say he sucked cock for his job,” 009 says thoughtfully, watching Q with amused interest, “Of course, there’s no evidence, but it makes sense, doesn’t it? It just feels rather suspicious to me, that someone so young was so quickly promoted to head an entire department.”

James knows that he shouldn’t, but he punches 009 in the face anyway.

The next thing he knows, they’re scuffling on the floor. He has 009 pinned against the tile and slams his fist repeatedly into his jaw, as the agent flails underneath him and lashes at his face. They struggle ferociously, and James feels a hard blow make contact with his cheek. He is thrown onto his back, but he scrambles to his feet and makes another lunge for 009. They both bodily collide with the floor, and pain shoots up one of his knees as he lands oddly, but he doesn’t care. He could strangle 009 then and there.

“What the hell are you two doing!? Stop it!”

Q, who has apparently left his post at his desk, seems to materialise out of thin air next to them. He grabs James by the arm, trying to pull him off, but James will have none of it, and neither will 009. They ignore Q and continue to grapple violently at each other. There is blood streaming from 009’s nose, and James can feel a bruise rapidly forming on his cheek.

“Stop it, you two!” Q shouts, “Stop acting like a pair of bloody children! Get _off_ of him, 007!”

“Stay out of it!” 009 snarls, and he shoves angrily at Q with a little more force than he had intended. Their quartermaster tumbles to the ground, and James’ fury dissipates as he watches Q hit the ground, replaced by panic.

James springs away from 009 and is at Q’s side in an instant.

“Are you alright?” he asks as he grabs Q by the hand and hurriedly hauls him to his feet.

“Piss off,” Q spits, snatching his hand away from James’, “I don’t know why the two of you insist on causing a scene in _my_ office, but I want both of you out right now.”

“Q –”

“Don’t make me say it again,” Q snaps angrily, “Excuse me, but I have more important things than breaking up a fight between two toddlers to do at the moment.” He storms away, and a hush falls over Q-Branch as his subordinates stare in mute shock. James watches him return to his desk and opens his mouth to apologise to Q’s retreating back, but is unable to find the right words. He is not surprised.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees 009 skulking off, and he supposes it’s about time that he does the same. What else can he possibly do?

  

* * *

 

 

James is called into M’s office less than an hour later.

It’s a rather laughable situation. He feels like a primary school student being summoned by the headmaster for a lecture – this is what this is, essentially. He doesn’t bother to pretend it’s anything else as he takes the liberty of seating himself in one of the plush chairs in front of M’s desk.

“I assume you know why you’re here,” M says curtly, hands folded patiently on his desk. “Really, I was hoping we wouldn’t have to have this conversation, but I find that it’s quite necessary. The behaviour that you showed in Q-Branch’s central office earlier is rather alarming to me. I’ve already spoken to 009, but I want to hear your version of the events now. You’re not in any sort of trouble, 007. I merely want to get to the bottom of the issue so I can ensure that something as inappropriate as this will never happen again.”

“009 questioned Q’s qualifications,” James says simply.

“And that warranted a blow with enough force to break his nose? He’s still in the medical ward, getting stitches, in case you were wondering.”

James scowls.

“He insinuated something unpleasant about Q,” he mutters, “His comments were hardly appropriate.”

“And what did he say?”

“That Q got his job by sucking off some people in power.”

M raises an eyebrow.

“That’s not true. It’s quite unfortunate that someone would make an assumption like that. Things like that would not have slipped past the attention of the former M. My understanding is that she hand-picked Q herself to serve as the head of Q-Branch based on his skill and competence alone.”

“So I’m aware.”

M sighs, leaning back in his chair. It is quiet for a long time as he studies James, who does little more than stare passively back and wonder when he can leave so M can stop wasting his time. Finally, M speaks again after another weary sigh.

“I know you’re rather fond of Q,” he says after some deliberation, “I don’t blame you. He’s very bright, and very beautiful.”

“It’s not like that,” James answers swiftly.

M is not fooled.

“He’s also very _young_ ,” M continues evenly, “I’d watch out, if I were you.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I’m not stupid or blind, 007,” M replies. He doesn’t sound angry, but James is still annoyed, “I can see the way you look at Q, the way you speak to him, the way you’d jump to his defence at the slightest provocation and go so far as to break another man’s nose to defend his name. I’ll be frank, 007, in saying that I don’t know what it is you think you’re doing, but whatever it is, it needs to stop.”

“There’s nothing to stop,” James mutters impatiently, and his grip on the chair’s armrest tightens involuntarily. “I don’t know what you expect to achieve from this conversation.”

“I would start by advising you to stay away from Q,” M says, his voice stern, “I can tell that he likes you quite a bit, too. Perhaps he is flattered by the attention you give him, but I’ll not have you distracting him from his work, and above that, I’ll not have you hurting him.”

James can feel the anger welling up in his chest at M’s words. He glares coldly at the man who is sitting across the desk from him and has to put every drop of self-control that he has into action to stop himself from exploding. He can’t help but take offence in the way M makes presumptions.

“The last thing I want to do is to hurt him,” he finally manages to grind out.

“I don’t doubt that your intentions are honourable, 007, but let’s be reasonable here. I hate to be so blunt, but you are a Double-0 agent. You regularly embark on highly dangerous missions. There’s never a guarantee that you’ll come back alive. I don’t want that kind of uncertainty for Q. If something ever happened to you, he would be devastated. If you think I’ll let you break his heart like that, then you are sorely mistaken.”

“Q is not a child. He can make his own decisions.”

“Of course he can. But can he be trusted to make the right ones?”

“You should give him more credit.”

“I’m only taking the necessary precautions to prevent this from getting out of hand.”

“It’s none of your business.”

“I only wish it wasn’t.”

The office is smothered in silence as they reach an impasse. They are stuck in a deadlock, both staunchly unwilling to back down, both trying to find a way to checkmate the other, but unable to find the means to do so. M is James’ superior, and James is in no place to contradict him – however, M is a good man, despite everything, and he won’t threaten James or try to flex his superiority in a disrespectful manner. James hates to admit it, but M does have a point. Relationships within the MI6 are not explicitly forbidden, but they are not in any way encouraged. There are too many ramifications, too many complications, too many things that could possibly go wrong, and too many ways that security and efficiency could become compromised.

But James Bond is a man of considerable pride, so, rather childishly, he gets up out of his seat and leaves M’s office without another word.

  

* * *

 

 

James finds Q in the canteen, staring pensively at his tea as if the Loch Ness monster is hiding somewhere in his mug. His gaze flickers upwards as James takes the seat across from him, but he says nothing, instead choosing to give James a sour look.

There is nothing to do but to apologise outright.

“I’m sorry,” James says when he catches Q’s gaze, “I was out of line.”

“More than that,” Q replies loftily, “Congratulations to both you and 009 for managing to completely humiliate me in front of my subordinates. Was it your intention to make me look like a fool, or were you trying to prove how much of a massive twat you can be? Either way – job well done. I’d say mission accomplished, wouldn’t you?”

“Don’t use that kind of language. It’s very unbecoming.”

“I’ll use whatever kind of language I like, but thank you for your valuable input.”

“I said I was sorry.”

“And I heard you.”

“I was trying to protect you.”

“Protect me?” Q repeats, an eyebrow arching in exasperation as he angrily sets his tea down, “You weren’t protecting me, 007, you were _patronising_ me. You’re still doing it right now. I thought you were better than that. I thought you were different, but I suppose you’re just like everyone else, aren’t you? You think I’m some stupid, helpless child who needs to be protected because I can’t fend for myself.”

James’ expression hardens.

“You know that’s not what I think of you.”

“Really, now?”

“Have a little more faith in me, Q.”

“I’m trying, 007, but how can I, when _you_ don’t have in faith in _me_? I don’t need your bloody protection. Stop thinking that you have to come to my defence at the slightest provocation. Stop trying to defend my honour as if it’s your duty, or whatever the hell it was that you were trying to do when you attacked 009. Stop deluding yourself into thinking that I need to be _saved_.” He spits out the last word as if it’s poison.

James is silent for a moment as he studies Q’s face. The boy is clearly upset – he’s obviously frustrated, but James doesn’t quite see any anger in his eyes. He can feel himself softening as he reaches across the table to take Q’s hand. Q is coiled so tightly, and he tenses as if he is about to snatch his hand away, but he falls still.

“This isn’t just about 009, is it? Is this about your gentleman?” he asks softly.

“I never asked you to get involved,” Q mutters.

“I care about you, Q. How could I not get involved? How could I let him keep treating you like that?”

Q looks up at James with soft sigh.

“You must think me terribly weak.”

“That’s completely absurd,” James assures him gently, “You’re anything but. It takes a good deal of strength to let yourself remain in a relationship like that for MI6’s sake. There’s nothing wrong with getting help from someone else. It doesn’t mean you’re weak at all. You’re much stronger than you give yourself credit for. You always have been.”

“If that’s what you think, then don’t try to be my knight in shining armour. That’s not what I need from you.”

“Then what do you need?”

“Some semblance of respect,” Q says firmly, looking at James directly in the eye, “And, of course, I need to hear you admit that you were wrong.”

James raises an eyebrow.

“Fine,” he says, giving Q’s hand a squeeze, “I was wrong. And you know that I hold you in the highest possible esteem.”

“I suppose I should take that as a compliment, given your standards.”

“You can consider it that, yes,” James responds, “But I can’t promise to stop trying to protect you. It’s like asking water to not be wet. I don’t doubt that you’re perfectly capable of holding your own, but it’s a flaw of mine, Q. I can’t sit back and do nothing. I don’t want you to get hurt in any way, ever. You don’t deserve it.”

Q seems to contemplate this statement. There is a long pause as he deliberates before he finally gives James another one of his strangely beautiful Mona Lisa smiles.

“You’re more stubborn than I ever anticipated, 007. Very well. If you insist on trying to protect me, then you must always ask my permission before you act. In fact, you will ask for my permission before you do anything at all that involves me.”

“Sounds fair enough,” James answers, “May I kiss you, then?”

Q frowns.

“No,” he says, and James swears he sees a little bit of mischief flickering behind the lenses of his quartermaster’s glasses, “You need to earn it.”


	8. Absit Omen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hooray, finally, some action! I'm sure you're all tired of just dialogue. I did my best. I'm not very good at writing action scenes or fighting scenes or anything like that.
> 
> I've left an additional note at the end of the chapter regarding the meaning of the Latin chapter title, because I feel that it's better for you all to see what happens in the chapter first.

 

* * *

 

It’s a Thursday afternoon when things go awry.

James is taking a quick break with Eve, enjoying a cup of black coffee in the canteen when, without warning, all the lights go out.

“Power outage?” Eve asks as they are submerged in darkness.

“Maybe,” James replies, but something in the back of his mind tells him that it’s not merely a power outage. Something has gone quite wrong. He gropes through the darkness, and as his eyes adjust, he is finally able to see the outlines of his surroundings. He leaves his coffee on the table and gets up, feeling around as he makes his way towards the door.

The entire corridor and everything beyond it looks completely dark. If the power in the whole building is down, then none of the computers, security doors, or CCTV cameras should be in working order. This, naturally, could put MI6 at significant risk. They have a back-up generator for use in the event of a power outage, but Q-Branch had programmed it to start up immediately upon power loss. The fact that the power has been out for more than three full minutes now leads James to believe that back-up generator has been tampered with, and therefore, someone is trying to disorient MI6.

In other words, something bad is about to happen.

“Moneypenny, are you armed?” he asks.

“Aren’t I always?”

“See if you can get to M. Obviously, the lifts won’t be working, so be careful when you’re on your way down the stairs.”

“Right,” Eve says, seeming to understand the situation, “You be careful yourself.”

They part ways, with Eve heading for the lower levels to check M’s office, and James moving down the corridor towards the Q-Branch central office. The computers can run for a short amount of time on their battery life, and he imagines that if it’s someone’s intention to use a power outage to cut MI6 off from functioning, then the next logical step would be for them to disable the computers entirely. It’s not unwise to assume that Q-Branch could be targeted.

He trips over an unseen object and falls awkwardly to the floor, muttering a stream of curses under his breath. With annoyed grunt, Bond stumbles back to his feet and pushes the object out of his way.

It’s heavy and still slightly warm.

James realises a moment later that he had just tripped over a corpse.

Then he hears gunshots down the corridor.

James swears quietly and races down the corridor. He goes as fast as his feet will take him, thanking his training for allowing him to have strength and stamina far above most other men his age. He skids to a stop in front of the doors of Q-Branch’s central office. He can see the flash of firing guns and hear the shots, as well as screams and shattering glass. Of all places to attack, Q-Branch is the easiest. None of its occupants are trained in combat, or usually even armed. He knows for a fact that, despite hand-crafting MI6’s best weapons, the only thing close to a weapon that Q carries on himself is pepper spray. More suited for someone trying to mug you in an alley than against a professional who has the skill to send MI6 into a state of disarray. The weapons that Q does put together are stored elsewhere in a separate armoury, and are of no help now.

James assesses the situation. He can see gunfire coming from five different places – five gunmen. He gets down on his hands and knees and crawls in through the doorway. James deduces that, based on the rather random pattern of gunfire, they aren’t aiming at any particular people and are firing indiscriminately to keep anyone from trying to access the computers. Though the darkness is the intruder’s weapon, it is also his defence, and it keeps him safely hidden from their sight as he makes his way inward.

Squinting through the darkness, he can see Q huddled under his desk, hands flying to cover his head as a bullet sails through a computer screen above him, sending shards exploding in every which way. As James crawls towards him, he feels a warm wetness on the ground – blood. He doesn’t even want to think about the current number of casualties.

A soft glow lights up Q’s face, and James sees that he is crouched over a laptop and is typing furiously away at it. He closes the distance between them, reaching out for Q.

Q claps a hand to his mouth to stifle his startled scream, but James quickly grasps him by the shoulders.

“It’s me!” he says hastily, “It’s 007.”

“Bloody _late_ , you are,” Q snaps, “Don’t sneak up on me like that. For god’s sake, I thought…I thought you were…”

He trails off and quickly returns his attention to the computer screen.

“What are you doing?” James asks.

“Just give me a moment.”

Q stops typing, taps one more button, and with a dull whir, the power is suddenly back. The lights flicker on, one by one, and the computers hum back to life. James has to admit that he is impressed by Q’s efficient response.

“Fuck,” one of the gunmen swears.

“Kill everyone,” another one says, and James assumes he is in charge. “But don’t touch the quartermaster – we’ll need him, alive.”

“Permission to get you out of here?” James asks.

“Yes, for fuck’s sake!” Q snaps.

Employees scramble for the door, but they are quickly shot down as they leave their hiding places from behind the rows of desks and machinery. Q’s eyes are impossibly wide as he sees his subordinates falling all around him. Now that the lights are back on, James can see all the bloodied bodies strewn across the room, a number that is already too high yet continues to increase by the second.

“Oh, god,” Q breathes, “Oh, god. Oh, god.”

Q is trying his best to stay calm, but James can see the way that his body minutely trembles, and he doesn’t blame him. The poor kid was never trained for this kind of situation. Quickly, James takes out his gun.

He hears heavy footsteps, and two men all in black, ski masks covering their faces, appear around the side of the desk – very basic disguises, no points for creativity. They spot James and Q, and in an instant, point their weapons at them.

James throws himself in front of Q and raises his gun. He fires a shot straight into the first man’s forehead, and the man topples to the ground. The other man fires at him, and he ducks, the bullet smashing into the desk. Q yelps, shielding himself from the wooden splinters flying through the air with his arms. James falls onto his side and shoots at the man’s feet. The man yells and crumples to the ground, and James takes the opportunity to disarm him, kicking the gun out of his hands before firing a bullet into his skull. Blood splatters onto his suit, but he ignores it.

“Follow me,” James says to Q over his shoulder.

“You’re mad,” Q protests, “They’ll kill you the second they see you with me, and then they’ll come after me.”

“That’s not going to happen. You have to trust me,” James shouts over the sound of continued gunfire, “I swear to God I’m not going to let anyone touch you. I’ll keep you safe. I’m getting you out of here, I promise.” He holds his hand out.

Q stares at it hesitantly.

“Do you trust me, Q?”

“I suppose I have no choice,” Q mutters, and he hastily takes James’ hand as the desk providing them with temporary protection is peppered with another barrage of bullets.

James pulls Q out from under the desk and against his chest, shielding him as he guides him quickly towards the door. He looks quickly over his shoulder and fires. He misses his mark, and one of the three remaining men is sprinting towards them. James’ gun clicks uselessly, out of ammunition. He throws it aside and kneels to the ground, pulling Q with him. He grabs the gun belonging to the man he had killed moments before from the ground, a semi-automatic rifle, and then gets back to his feet.

“Stay down,” he tells Q, before shooting the man running at them twice in the chest. The man crumples to the ground, disappearing behind and overturned desk, and James winces as a bullet grazes his shoulder. He ducks and fires again.

The first of the two remaining intruders is upon him all of a sudden, disarming him with a blow to the wrist. James grits his teeth in pain as he grapples with the man. They struggle for the upper hand, and out of the corner of his eye, much to his horror, James sees his associate grabbing Q by the arm and jerking him to his feet.

“Let go of him!” James shouts, wrestling frantically against his attacker. He feels an arm wrapping around his neck, crushing his windpipe. Wheezing, he kicks the man hard in the shin and ducks out of his grasp, starting towards Q.

But Q’s attacker is letting out a blood-curling scream as Q gets him directly in the face with a blast of pepper spray.

The man stumbles back, screaming and clawing at his face. Q falls backwards onto his rear end, eyes wide as if he can’t quite believe what he’s just done, either. James reacts quickly, spinning around and delivering a crushing blow to the other man’s face with his elbow, knocking him out cold, before doing the same to Q’s pepper spray victim with a hard punch to the back of the skull. Panting, he turns his attention back to his quartermaster.

“Are you alright?” he asks, helping Q up. He looks rather shaken, and there is a scratch on his cheek, but unharmed otherwise, much to James’ relief. Perhaps he shouldn’t underestimate the merits of pepper spray so much – they work not only on muggers, but on armed intruders as well, it seems.

James kneels down next to the unconscious form of one of the fallen intruders – the one he had presumed to be the leader. He pulls the ski mask off his face, and the acrid taste of betrayal instantly fills his mouth.

“009,” he mutters. He doesn’t know if he should be disgusted or saddened by his fellow Double-0’s betrayal, and ultimately decides on both.

Q suddenly lets out a pained cry. Confused, James whips his head round and sees Q doubled over, staggering towards the nearest desk before leaning heavily against it. His eyes move to where Q’s hands are pressed to his side, and his eyes widen when he sees crimson leaking out from between the slender fingers.

“You’ve been hit,” James says in alarm.

“It’s nothing,” Q replies through gritted teeth, “I don’t…I don’t think any vital organs are damaged.” But his face is pale and he looks weak, probably from shock, and he’s panting heavily. It’s not uncommon for one to not notice they’ve been hurt when their bodies are running high on adrenaline – James knows this from experience.

Q slumps against the desk, breathing uneven as his knees buckle. James leaps to catch him as he slides downwards towards the floor.

“I’ve got you,” he murmurs, wrapping his arms around Q’s body, “You’re alright. I’ve got you.”

Q is probably right – it doesn’t look like it’s hit anything vital, but it’s bleeding profusely and Q is so slight in frame that James is afraid any further blood loss will result in loss of consciousness, not to mention that if he’s reading the symptoms right, Q has already begun to go into shock. He takes off his suit jacket and drapes it over Q’s shoulders, then rips a long strip of fabric from his sleeve, wads it into a ball, and slides it under Q’s fingers to staunch the bleeding.

“Hold that there, tightly – Good, yes, just like that,” he says, keeping his voice calm and encouraging, “Very good. You’re doing so well. Don’t you worry for even a second. I’m going to lift you now – tell me if I’m hurting you, alright?”

“Don’t use that patronising tone of voice with me,” Q snaps, but allows James to continue with his ministrations.

M, Eve, and a few lower-level agents that James doesn’t recognise come running in as James carefully lifts Q bridal-style. He picks him up with ease. Light as a feather, he thinks. Q whimpers, and James freezes, but the boy sets his jaw and shakes his head to indicate that there is no problem. M looks concerned when he sees James cradling the injured Q in his arms.

“Is he alright?”

“He’s been hit,” James says, “Once, in the abdominal region. It’s bleeding a lot, but it won’t be anything serious if I get him medical attention immediately. He’s stronger than he looks.”

“Good,” M says, “See that you do. Miss Moneypenny and I will take it from here.”

James nods and walks briskly out the door, Q in tow.

 

* * *

 

James is pleased to see that Q recovers very quickly from his gunshot wound.

He is in the infirmary for three days, and James doesn’t leave his side. Q insists that James is silly for being so concerned over such a minor injury, but James can’t help but worry. A dozen things could go wrong. Q could be allergic to the medication, or the doctors could accidentally administer too much of the anaesthetics before they operate to remove the bullet and shrapnel, or the operation could go terribly wrong and Q could bleed to death, or the wound could become infected and escalate into something fatal.

Fortunately, none of those things happen.

Q is back in the office by the end of the third day and gets right back to work. 

James is a firm believer that since Q is wounded, he deserves to be spoiled rotten, and so he brings flowers and expensive chocolates and ensures that Q’s mug of tea is never empty. Much to Q’s horror, Eve brings balloons. Many of Q’s subordinates bring him various gifts and get-well cards, ranging from humorous to sappily sentimental. M comes to visit as well to give Q his good wishes and offers to let Q take a holiday to rest and recover, but Q declines.

“This is ridiculous,” Q says to James one day when they are allowed a rare moment alone. Between the buzz of the day’s work and Q’s numerous visitors – he is quite well-liked within MI6, it seems – they don’t have much time to talk alone. “Why must you all make such a commotion over me? I wasn’t even _near_ death, for god’s sake.”

“You were hurt all the same,” James tells him, “And you reacted very efficiently to the power outage and got the system back up and running on your own in just a few minutes. M is very proud of you, you know. 009 has been apprehended and M is taking care of the situation. Everything will be alright.”

“Oh, good. Let’s put up the bunting, then,” Q says sardonically. “When should I expect my medal?”

“Q. Give yourself some credit.”

“Thirty-two of my subordinates were killed,” he replies flatly, "And I did absolutely nothing to save them. I sat there and watched them die."

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“I could have prevented it. If the security systems were more up to date...”

“You shouldn't be blaming yourself.”

“Even if that were true,” Q spits out, and James has never heard him sound this bitter before, “It doesn’t make me worth any of this.” He gestures angrily to the flowers, balloons, and cards that surround him. “I was doing my job, 007. So were they when they died. What’s being done for them? I’ve spent the last two days writing letters of condolence to the families of the departed. I can hardly bring myself to – I’m sure the last thing their families want to hear is an apology from the person who was meant to be in charge of their welfare, but failed.”

“Q.”

“No. Don’t try to convince me any of this is alright. I’m very grateful for everyone’s concerns and well wishes, especially yours, James, but I would feel much better if you were to take all this away and dispose of it immediately.”

James doesn’t question Q any further. Everything goes into the rubbish bin.

The memorial service takes place one day later.

Thirty-two caskets are lined up in a disturbingly neat row, each draped with the union flag. Dressed in all black, Q is allowed a moment alone to pay his final respects to his fallen subordinates. James watches his quartermaster slowly make his way down the line, pausing for a few moments at each one.

No-one but James sees him cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Absit omen" is what you'd say when you hope something bad that happens isn't an omen for something worse - though there's no direct reflection of it in this chapter, it's something to keep in mind for the future...ahem. I shan't be giving anything away, but let's just say what happens in this chapter, doesn't stay in this chapter...Now, what could I possibly mean by that? We shall see, won't we?


	9. Cor Aut Mors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hooray, a slightly longer update this time! Really, thanks so much for all of your comments. They're giving me a much-needed ego boost and really are making me feel a bit better about my lack of writing experience/skill.
> 
> "Cor aut mors" literally means "heart or death" and refers to having to make a choice between the two, but it figuratively means something like having to choose between duty, or a lack of purpose/to no longer be respected.

 

* * *

 

The day after the memorial service, James goes to see 009.

They're holding him in a temporary confinement unit until they can transfer and permanently re-locate him to a maximum-security prison He had admitted guilt in willingly committing what was comparable to treason, and responsibility for the murder of thirty-two of Q-Branch's employees. The entire operation had been orchestrated and led by himself. As for why he did it - that was no concern of the court's. All they needed to know was whether or not he was guilty, and they had gotten the answer that they were looking for.

But it's not quite enough for James.

He remembers something that 009 had ordered his men to do clearly in his mind: _Don't touch the quartermaster - we'll need him, alive._

It disturbs James deeply to think that somehow, Q has a place somewhere in this mess. What on earth did Q have to do with whatever it was that 009 had in mind? Why did 009 need him? And why did it warrant a full-scale assault on Q-Branch? Did it have anything to do with the comments that 009 had made about him - comments that had enraged James to the point of physically attacking him? The fact that Q was his target terrifies him senseless. He's glad that he had arrived when he did. Otherwise, there'd be no telling just what 009 would have done with Q.

He walks past the guards, who wordlessly let him inside. M must have already informed them that he does indeed have permission to be here. The doors close behind him, and he finds that he is separated from 009 by a solid door with a small window fashioned from bullet-proof glass. He looks through the window and sees 009 sitting on the cement floor, staring blankly into the space in front of him. James has to admit that he finds the hollowness in his fellow Double-0 agent's eyes to be very eerie.

009 looks up through the window at James, his face remaining blank.

"Hello, 007," he says, "I thought you'd come. Looking for answers, are you?"

James nods.

009 stares at him with unblinking eyes.

"Well? Go on and ask me."

"Why did you do it?"

"You of all people should know why," 009 answers flatly, "Don't tell me you've never felt it before - that feeling, deep down inside of you. Your mind tells you that you should be happy to serve queen and country, but your heart...It tells you something else, doesn't it? What does your heart tell you, 007?"

"That's irrelevant," James replies tonelessly, "I'm here to talk about you, not me."

"Fair enough," 009 concedes. He gives James a tired smile. "MI6 is sucking the life out of me. It's a parasite, sucking my bones dry, giving nothing in return. It took away every chance I had at a normal life, every possibility of ever being happy. And for what? So I could die in the filth of some country I don't even want to be in for the sake of an ungrateful lot of bureaucrats and their money? You know what I mean. You and I are very alike. We just have different breaking points. Mine was just sooner, I suppose. There's no reason for us to fight for this country, you know."

"That's not true," James retorts. There is every reason. This is England. Everything that matters to him is here. It was his parent's home, it's his home, it's Q's home. He has someone to protect.

009 laughs dryly.

"MI6 doesn't protect England, 007. MI6 protects the pockets of powerful men - men who you and I have unwittingly sold our very souls and lives to."

"You could have just resigned."

"Do you really think M would have allowed it?"

"You underestimate him."

"And why shouldn't I? He's just as bad as the rest of them."

"So you decided to attack Q-Branch as some sort of temper tantrum?"

"Something like that."

James watches him carefully.

"That's not entirely true, is it?" he asks, "You needed Q. That sounds like a lot more than mere tantrum to me. Why did you need him?"

009 shrugs.

"I admit it wasn't the best of ideas," he replies in an unnervingly nonchalant voice, "I needed him to access MI6's databases and delete my file. I had it all figured out. He'd do me that little favour, and once it was done, I'd disappear into thin air and try living my life the way I want - not the way MI6 wants. I tried to get him to do it several times before, but he's a stubborn little one. He refused me every time. He left me no choice."

"He was right to."

009 cocks his head, studying James with a vague half-smile.

"You're so obvious, 007," he laughs, "You love the boy. You're as loyal to him as a dog. You just had to know why I went after him. What? Did you think you had some kind of moral duty to protect him from me? I wasn't going to hurt him, you know."

"Don't make stupid assumptions."

"You should be careful. I tried to warn you before, didn't I? And you broke my nose as thanks. Like I said, Q's a frigid little thing. There's so much going on in that brain of his, always calculating, always puzzling through things. There's nothing in that boy but numbers and computer code. You can try to squeeze your way in, 007, but believe me - there's no room in there for you. You're nothing to him. You're trivial - just another Double-0 at his beck and call, another plaything. You're a pawn, 007, can't you see? Nothing but a mouse running through a maze, something for him to expand on his own vanity with, a lab rat to test the equipment he makes. He likes to have affirmation of his cleverness. He likes calling the shots, telling you where to go and what to do. Don't you feel it, when he leads you around and around through missions, like it's some kind of bloody game? He'll let you think he gives a shit about you for his own purposes, and one day, he'll leave you. He'll turn his back on you and go back to his computers. You'll see."

"You don't know anything about it," James grinds out, fists clenching. Were it not for the solid barrier between them, he's fairly sure that he'd be throttling 009 right now.

The door behind him opens, and M steps in.

"007, you're needed in Q-Branch," he says, "Your equipment for your assignment is ready. Please see Q immediately."

"Right away, sir," James mutters.

He glances at 009 one more time, and 009 stares right back at him. He tears his gaze away and briskly turns around, walking out the door.

Each step takes him further away from 009 and closer to Q, yet something in the back of his mind doesn't feel right.

The uneasiness settles in his stomach, solid and disconcerting.

 

* * *

 

James puts his earpiece on as Q snaps shut a box containing the latest special piece of equipment that he has made specifically for this particular mission.

“There,” Q says, and he places the box in James’ hands, “Remember, this can only be detonated by me, because apparently, MI6 doesn’t trust you anymore when it comes to blowing things up. It’s been specially wired and programmed so that all I have to do is enter a code from my computer, and wherever you are in the world, it will create an explosion. So make sure you turn the receiver on, and check the connection before you give me the OK.”

“Of course,” James says, and he opens the box to see what Q has disguised the explosive device as. He raises an eyebrow. It’s a pair of cufflinks.

“What? Would you have preferred me to have made it a pen?” Q asks dryly in response to James’ dubious expression, “They’re small, but they’re powerful. They’ll do the job, don’t worry. If you still have your doubts, I can demonstrate by placing them in your flat.”

“That won’t be necessary.”

“I thought not.”

“I wouldn’t doubt your genius.”

“That would be the wise thing to do.”

Q passes James another box. James opens it – a standard, rather unassuming training pistol.

“This I made especially for you, and no other Double-0,” he explains, “Long-range, noiseless, lightweight and compact. I wouldn’t have you lugging around a cumbersome sniper. The bullets are also specially engineered, sensitive to heat and movement. They’ll home right in on your target, if you can get a clear shot with no civilians around, which, of course, is the ideal situation. They won’t be able to outrun it, and they certainly won’t be able to dodge it. I know how disgustingly sweaty you can get, so I’ve also made the grip completely slip-proof. Of course, it’s also been coded to your palm-print – Like I said, this is for you only - because your aim has gotten so bloody terrible.”

James takes the gun out of the box and holds it in one hand. It is remarkably light, and it feels just right in his hand. He grins, placing the little gun back into the box, snapping the lid shut.

“As usual, Q, you never fail to impress.”

“I should hope not.”

James looks at the clock. In a little less than two hours, he will be on a plane that will take him far away, away from England, away from Q. He’ll start in Riga, find the target, follow him to facility where weapons meant for an elaborate plot to collapse the fragile governments in Eastern Europe are being made, and finally, take out the target and destroy said facility with Q’s explosives. It’s simple, save for the fact that his target is guarded and monitored by some of the most skilled mercenaries on the continent, and only a Double-0 has a chance of making it out alive.

“You’d best being going now,” Q says, “We don’t want you to miss your flight, do we?”

James looks back at Q, who stands straight and makes an admirable attempt to put on a brave smile, It might fool someone who doesn’t know him as well as James does, but James can immediately see that he is worried. He always is, and always has been, from the very beginning. James admits that he is reluctant to leave him, but he has to.

Even like this, he notes, Q is beautiful.

“I’ll be with you every step of the way,” Q tells him softly, “But please be careful.”

“Don’t worry,” James answers, and he pulls his quartermaster into his arms, “I’ll be sure to bring all of your equipment back in one piece.”

“Never mind that,” Q says quietly, “Just concentrate on bringing _yourself_ back in one piece.”

James kisses him goodbye like it’s their first and last time, and every other time in between.

 

* * *

 

 

Had it been Budapest or Sarajevo? Perhaps it had even been Prague. It’s all a blur to James as he stares at the ceiling, stark and white. The room is silent, save the sound of his breathing and the rhythmic beeping from the heart monitor. The slightest movement sends waves of dull pain throbbing through his body, so he lies still and continues to stare at the ceiling. He isn’t sure what he is expecting to see there.

The mission had been a success. The building had been blown to kingdom come, and James had been ready to leave. He hadn’t been expecting to be chased so ferociously. He’d been hit, twice in the leg, once in the shoulder, another time in his side. He’d been driving for quite some time, bleeding all over the leather seats, with Q’s voice in his ear, telling him where to drive. Then a black car had appeared in his peripheral vision, and the next thing he knew, his own car had overturned, and he was falling and tumbling and everything around him was shattering and breaking. He couldn’t see, he couldn’t think.

The last thing he’d heard was Q frantically shouting his name, and then everything dissolved into darkness.

When he opened his eyes, he was here, lying in this hospital bed, swathed in bandages like a mummy, attached to all sorts of machines in a mess of tubes and wires like some kind of freak science experiment.

The door opens and closes quietly. James moves his gaze in the direction of the sound, and sees Q standing there, a hand pressed over his mouth to stifle a horrified sob. James wonders how bad he looks to force Q into this state.

“Q,” he rasps, and his quartermaster slowly approaches his bedside, sitting down at the visitor’s chair that has been placed there. He reaches out to gingerly touch James’ hand, but quickly withdraws, as if he’s afraid that if he touches him again, James will fall apart like cracked china. His bottom lip trembles, and he looks ready to burst into tears, but he is valiantly fighting them back.

“I knew they were coming for you,” Q finally says, voice barely above a whisper, “I could have warned you. But I didn’t. M told me not to. He said that if I warned you, you’d get distracted trying to take them out first, and…” His voice trails off, and he looks down into his lap. “But this isn’t M’s fault. I made the final judgement. I agreed with him. I thought…I thought it would be the best for the mission.”

James nods in understanding, but it doesn’t seem to sway Q.

“This is my fault,” he says, “I’m sorry, god, 007, I’m so sorry.”

“You made the right choice,” James assures him, and his voice comes out hoarse and fragmented, “For queen and country.”

“Sod all of that,” Q retorts bitterly, “You could have been killed. You almost were, in fact.”

“I don’t blame you, Q.”

“You should.”

“But I won’t.”

They both fall silent, and Q’s eyes are still glued to his lap. The sound of the heart monitor is eerie and disconcerting, and James resists the urge to jump out of bed and smash it on the floor. Not that he’d get very far, with all the tubes and wires connected to his body. The beeping continues, rhythmic and mocking, and James thinks, one day he won’t be so lucky. One day, the beeping will stop, and not because he’s managed to destroy the machine.

Finally, Q looks back up, his jaw set as he meets James eyes.

“I can’t do this anymore,” he says.

“Do what?”

“ _This_ ,” Q says, making a vague, wild gesture, “This, all of this, whatever the hell it is that’s between you and me. I can’t do it, 007. I just can’t. When you left, M came to see me. He told me to keep my distance from you, and I know why. He’s afraid that I’m a distraction to you, and that you’re a distraction to me. I realised that I’m afraid of the same thing – absolutely terrified. He also told me that I can’t get too attached to things that have an early expiration date, because they will be gone faster than I know. You’re a dead man walking, all Double-0’s are.”

James remembers M giving him a similar warning, and it angers him for some unfathomable reason that he would do the same to Q.

“That’s the way it works, and I tell myself that you’re strong, but I’m not naïve and I know you’re not invincible. Every time you walk out the door to leave for a mission, I wonder if it’ll be the last time I see you, and if it’ll be the time when you come back to me in a body bag. It’s absolute torture. That day will come sooner or later. And I’ll have to be there. I’ll have to listen to you, 007, listen to you die, and I’ll be powerless at my computer, unable to do anything about it. It will be my fault entirely. Do you know what they tell me, 007? Do you know what they tell me, every time I send a Double-0 off on his way with his equipment? They tell me I should begin mourning the moment they step out of my doors. It’s not that they don’t trust me to keep my agents safe. There are things I can’t control, so I can’t reasonably be expected to hold the sole responsibility for your safety. Yet, here I am, telling myself that I could have done something – anything – to stop this from happening to you. There'll be a day when you won't be so lucky, and you won't make it out alive. It’s too much for me. I don’t want to be put through this anymore, you can’t make me. I’m not strong enough, 007, and I doubt that I ever will be.”

“I trust you,” James tells him through gritted teeth. “I trust you, more than any other person on this goddamn planet. I need you.”

Q buries his face in his hands.

“Please, don’t,” he says in a muffled voice, “Please don’t say those kinds of things to me.”

“I will say whatever I damn well please. You’re stronger than you give yourself credit for, do you understand?”

 “For god’s sake, 007.”

“Do you understand?”

Q looks up at him with watery eyes.

“No,” he says, “I don’t. I don’t understand how you can be so bloody stubborn.”

They are both quiet again. The heart monitor beeps steadily on. James exhales and returns his gaze to the ceiling. Nothing there but white. At his bedside, Q lets out a shuddering sigh and agitatedly runs a hand through his hair, as if weren’t dishevelled enough already. James can feel that Q is currently a mess of nerves, fraying at the edges. He wonders how they got to this point. Him, properly battered and incapacitated in a hospital bed, and Q, falling apart at the seams.

“Do you ever think about just giving this all up?” James asks quietly as he continues to stare at the ceiling as if all the answers to everything he’s ever wondered about will materialise there, “Leaving MI6, having a normal life. Getting a normal job in a plain old office. Having a normal family, in a normal home.”

Q looks as if he doesn’t know how to respond to this.

“Would you do it?” James asks, and he turns his gaze to Q, who is staring back at him with an expression that is absolutely impossible to discern, “If you had the chance, would you do it?”

“Do you refer to a hypothetical situation, or – ”

James knows that Q knows exactly what he means. He looks him straight in the eyes and holds his gaze.

“What I’m asking is if you’d give _normal_ a shot with me.”

“You want us to leave MI6?”

James nods.

“I’m old and tired,” he says, “MI6 and I will inevitably part ways sooner or later. But you – you’re young and pretty and intelligent. There are so many other options for you. We could resign, and you’d have no trouble finding another job, if you wanted to. I have plenty of money that I've been saving for years. I could take care of you, if you’d let me. We could…We could have an actual life.”

Q stares at James in mute disbelief.

The room is deathly silent. James watches Q, trying to read his face, but as usual, Q is a mystery that he can never solve, no matter how hard he tries or what he does.

Finally, Q speaks.

“This _is_ my life, 007,” he says in a voice barely above a whisper, “For me, there is nothing else. Do you have any idea what you’re asking me to do? You’re asking me to give up everything I’ve ever worked for, everything that means anything at all to me. What am I without MI6? Just another shut-in who sits in front of a computer all day. That’s not what I want to be. I want to be where I can be useful. I _need_ to. I can’t…I just can’t throw it all away and run off with you. I…I really can’t. Please try to understand.”

Words fail James.

He doesn’t know if he actually expected Q to accept him. He doesn’t even know why he brought up the topic in the first place. What a fool he’s been, thinking that there was any chance for “normal.” There is nothing normal about Q, and there’s certainly nothing normal about himself. It had been a rare moment of naïveté, an ill-fated flight of fancy that was crushed the moment it was born. Q has chosen his career over him, but he can’t blame the boy. What he feels is not pain, but a sudden sense of emptiness, as if he is falling into a great hole and there is nothing tangible around him that he can hold on to, only a vast, blinding whiteness that threatens to devour him entirely.

“I’m sorry,” Q says quietly, “If…If the circumstances were different…”

He trails off because both of them know that there is no point in dreaming up hypothetical situations. This is reality. This is their lives. This is who they are, what they were born as, and what they will eventually die as. No amount of wishful thinking or “what-if’s” will change any of it.

“I’m going to resign as soon as I’m discharged from this godforsaken hospital,” James tells him, “I’m done with MI6. But you’re free to stay on. It’s your own decision.”

“Thank you,” Q tells him, “I’m so sorry, so bloody sorry. I really am.”

He stands up from is seat, and is still for a few moments before he hesitantly reaches out to lace his fingers with James’. James pulls Q’s hand to his lips and places a brief kiss on its back. He holds on for a moment longer, savouring the sensation, locking the memory away into his mind, and then finally releases him.

“I should go,” Q says softly, “Goodbye, 007. I wish only the best of luck to you.”

“Goodbye, Q.”

Q turns away from him and walks to the door. He pauses with his hand on the knob.

“You know, 007, normal isn’t always the best thing, or even the right thing, for everyone.”

His quartermaster gives him one last small, enigmatic smile before leaving the room.

James closes his eyes and listens to the sound of his footsteps echoing through the empty corridor fade into nothingness.

009's words echo in his head.

He tries to shut them out, but he can't. He is powerless.

_One day, he'll leave you. He'll turn his back on you and go back to his computers. You'll see._


	10. In Inceptum Finis Est

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Relatively short update this time - and unusual, because there's only one part to it. Well, it's deliberate! I can't really say why, but it just feels like it makes sense to me, having this part stand alone. We're moving into the next "segment" of the story now, a slightly different arc (but not a wide deviation), however, I'm still not really sure how many chapters there will be in total. I'm still tweaking things around. 
> 
> Anyway, "In inceptum finis est" means "the end is in the beginning" in Latin, and as usual, I thank you all very much for your comments! They're very, very encouraging, believe me.

James is discharged from the hospital on a Sunday and hands in his notice on Monday. M tells him that he’s sorry to see him go and if there's anything he can do to change his mind. James assures him that there is absolutely nothing he can possibly do at this point that would convince him to stay with MI6, so M thanks him for his service to the country and promises him that he will be given generous financial compensation for his injuries.

He packs up what things he has laying scattered around MI6, gives Moneypenny a fond farewell, and makes one last trip to Q’s lab. He looks through the glass doors one last time, watching him type away at his computer, his subordinates working furiously to keep up. He considers saying goodbye to him for a final time, but thinks better of it, no matter how much he longs to hold him and to kiss him again.

He tells himself this is how Q would have preferred it.

On Tuesday, James cleans out his flat. He throws everything out that is reminiscent of his old life, and he spends Wednesday picking out new furnishings and having them delivered straight away. He also applies for a new job - some banal administrative position at a publishing company. It seems like it'd make sense - when he was a boy, he'd been rather fond of books. By the end of Thursday, everything has been reorganised and rearranged, and he restocks his refrigerator with groceries. Now that he's getting older, he has to eat well to stay healthy. On Friday, he interviews for the job, and he must have done something right, because he is hired on the spot despite his lack of relevant qualifications. It probably isn't too unwise to assume that M might have pulled some strings behind the scenes in a friendly gesture to assist in his transition to civilian life. 

James has rebuilt himself a life, a normal and ordinary life, perhaps the life he would have had if he had never been found and picked up by MI6. He thinks that now, he should be content.

But he’s not.

There is a massive gaping hole in the midst of all this.

On Saturday, James wakes up with Q’s name on his lips. He lies in his new bed for hours. No matter how hard he tries, he can’t get his former quartermaster out of his mind – his clever eyes, his silken voice, his maddeningly imperceptible smile. He wonders what Q is doing, and if he thinks about him, because James misses him more than he dares to admit. The ache in his chest is surprisingly pervasive. He can't remember ever feeling so _lonely_. That afternoon is spent pacing the length of his flat up and down, and at night, he drinks himself silly at some cheap London bar.

Finally, on Sunday morning, a week after he was discharged from the hospital and left MI6, when he opens his eyes, he finds some dark-haired woman he can’t remember the name of lying next to him.

New flat, new job, new life.

A life without Q.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, James knows that he is lying to himself. He knows that he is only pretending, trying with all his might to convince himself that this is how things should be and that he is perfectly fine with how things have shaped up to be. 

He tries not to, and he knows he shouldn't but he can't stop thinking about what could have happened if Q had accepted him, if Q was here with him. They’d have a dog, he thinks - he's always wanted one - and maybe someday, God be willing, there’d even be some children. He imagines Q would get home first, then him later, or vice versa, and he dreams up domestic scenes that are so impossible and ridiculous that it’s almost laughable – making meals together, taking the children to school, walking the dog, buying groceries, doing the things that normal British families do. Waking up next to the only person who could ever have made him _happy_.

There is no use in “what-ifs,” James tells himself, just as he had in the hospital room with a teary-eyed Q telling him that he was choosing his career over him. There’s no turning back now. They are what they are and life is what it is. 

It's not long before James comes to realise one thing - 

Normalcy be damned. Without Q, there is nothing waiting for James after MI6, absolutely nothing, and he had been such a bloody fool to think that there might be. 


	11. Ultra Vires

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't have too much to say this time, but I dunno if I'm entirely happy with how this chapter was handled, I feel like there's still some holes that I was unsure of how to fill. Ah well. I tried, and therefore no-one can criticise me! (Daniel Radcliffe on SNL, anyone?)
> 
> "Ultra vires" is nowadays used as a legal term in court, I believe. It refers to incidents that occur "beyond power (the rules)" or "outside the rules."

 

* * *

 

It is completely by chance – or maybe it was fate (not that he believes in that sort of thing) – that James sees Q through the window of a cramped old book shop one snowy December afternoon, two years after his resignation from MI6.

At first, he doesn’t dare to believe it’s him. There are probably a thousand other youths walking the streets of London that look exactly the way Q does from behind. But it is unmistakeably Q, with his spindly limbs and big eyes and tousled hair and ridiculous cardigan – today, in a shade of maroon. James would be able to pick him out in a crowd of millions.

He considers turning around and running like the coward that he has found himself to be. But he knows that if he does, he will regret it for the rest of his life. So James summons up his courage, straightens his coat, and opens the book shop’s door.

The bells hanging on the door jingle merrily as the door swings shut. The lady at the counter smiles at him, and James nods at her. His eyes, however, are fixed on Q, who doesn’t seem to notice that James is approaching him. Instead, he is leafing aimlessly through a book that looks like it’s old enough to disintegrate into dust at any moment, as if he isn’t really sure what he’s doing in this dusty old shop.

_That makes two of us_ , James thinks.

He stands there, stock-still, heart pounding as he stares at the completely oblivious Q, and wonders if this is actually a good idea. It’s not too late. He can still make a run for it.

But James is so tired of running away. He’s tired of not being able to say everything that he’s always wanted to. He’s tired of living with his days mired in a fog of self-pity. He’s tired of thinking about what could have happened if he’d just _said the right things_. He’s tired of trying to convince himself that he has accepted the way that the situation between them has somehow turned out. And most of all, he’s just tired of being without Q.

“Q,” he says, but it comes out more like a croak. His mouth has suddenly gone quite dry.

Q looks up from the book, and his eyes become impossibly wide when he sees James standing there before him.

“007,” he says breathlessly, looking a little dazed, “What…What are you doing here?”

“Honestly?” James replies, “I have no idea. And it’s not 007 anymore. Call me James.”

He remembers one time when Q had called him by his name, and he longs to hear him say it again.

Q smiles vaguely.

“Best not to,” he says in a clipped tone, “I’ll call you Mr Bond.”

It shouldn’t, but his statement sets off a dull pain somewhere in James’ chest. Of course. It’s been years. He has no right to butt his way back into Q’s life and expect things to be as they once were. Too much has changed. He manages a smile.

“And what should I call you?”

“Still Q. It feels nostalgic.”

“What are you reading?” James gestures at the book that is still in Q’s hands, a lovely antique tome, even if it is fraying and even if the pages look ready to fall out.

“ _Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad_ ,” Q reads aloud, “Longfellow. Beautiful, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Beautiful.”

It’s been two years, and Q is almost exactly the same as James remembers him. Pretty Q, with his soft voice and his cryptic smile. His hair has grown a little longer, but not by much, and it’s just as messy as he recalls. It’s a little strange to think that he had once run his fingers through that hair, and that he had once kissed those lips and held this boy in his arms. There’d been a time when he would have done anything for him – he would have died for him without a moment’s hesitation.

And then James realises that he still would.

“Do you want to get a drink with me? Coffee or tea, I mean. I remember that you’re not too fond of the other kind.”

Q smiles again, and it aches so much to think how much James has missed that lovely smile.

“I would like that very much, Mr Bond.”

  

* * *

 

 

They’re sitting across from each other at a small table in a café buried amongst a cluster of other cramped shops, but there’s something comforting and cosy about the snugness of it all. Q’s cheeks are rosy from the transition of the cold outdoors to the warm interior. It’s oddly endearing.

James orders a black coffee, and after much deliberation, Q decides on a cup of Earl Grey.

He hasn’t changed much at all.

Though the café is on the crowded side, and the street outside is bustling with people trying to get their Christmas shopping done, James feels like Q is the only other person in the room. If anything, the proximity they have been forced into due to the size of the café and the amount of people in it creates a warm sense of intimacy that James has almost forgotten even existed.

“You seem quite different from when I last saw you, Mr Bond,” Q remarks as he gingerly sips his steaming tea, “You’ve changed.”

“For the better, I hope?”

“I haven’t decided yet,” Q answers coyly, “But I do appreciate that you’ve finally taken the time to have a proper shave. It’s an improvement.” Dear Q, his clever little quartermaster, quick and nimble with his words. He’d be an outrageously good flirt if he tried, James thinks, but Q had never been that kind of person, and probably still isn’t. As a matter of fact, as far as he’s aware, Q has never really spoken to anyone else the way he does with James – there’s no banter with the others, only clipped, professional remarks with the occasional snide quip.

“So, how have you been, Mr Bond?” Q asks, and he’s smiling at James, soft and radiating a pleasant warmth, “How is everything?”

“Fine,” James replies, “Normal. I’m working in publishing now.”

 “Publishing? I’ll admit I’m surprised.”

“There’s no reason to be.”

“And you’re happy?”

James pauses.

“I’m content,” he tells Q finally, “Which is not quite the same thing. But it’s close enough.”

“I’m glad to see that you’re doing well, Mr Bond,” Q says, “I really am.”

Q’s left hand is resting absently on the table, and James finds his gaze drifting to it – those quick and clever fingers that still fascinate him. He considers reaching out to take that hand in his own, maybe just for old time’s sake. He’s surprised at his own sentimentality.

“What about you?” he asks Q, ignoring the urge to grab his hand – years of training are not easily forgotten and he still can exercise a great deal of temperance and self-control when he wants to. It’s been two years, after all, and he isn’t quite sure if he has the right to act as familiar with Q as he once had, in days gone by that at this moment, feel only like a dream that he fondly remembers. “How have things been at MI6?”

“You know I’m not allowed to talk about any of that,” Q laughs, “Confidentiality. Remember?”

“Of course.”

“But I suppose there’d be no consequence in telling you that everything has been relatively smooth since your departure, surprisingly,” he continues, “Things have been pretty quiet as of late. I suppose we can thank the Americans for that. It turns out the CIA is capable of orchestrating its own little schemes after all. Some of the time, anyway.”

James chuckles. How he’s missed Q’s subtle humour.

There is so much about Q to be loved – all his little quirks and characteristics – and James wonders who he shares it with now. He secretly and a bit selfishly hopes that, for his own sake, there’s nobody. He ponders whether or not he ought to ask about it. The answer could potentially crush him. He tries not to imagine Q at the arm of another man, with a family, a picture that has no room for him in it. He’s knows the feeling all too well – the thought that Q can never be his. He doesn’t want to experience it again, as the wounds have not healed over completely, but at the same time, he cannot help but wonder. Ultimately, he decides to ask. Better to put himself out of his own misery than to live in ignorance.

“Have you found somebody?” he asks, and tries not to sound overly curious. Much to his chagrin, his voice comes out exceedingly flat and deadpan – much too obvious. He knows Q is perceptive enough to see right through him in a heartbeat, and he probably does.

Q’s gaze drifts distractedly out the window, and he watches the crowds hurrying by the frosted windowpane. James wonders what he hopes to see out there.

“I was engaged again,” Q says quietly as he stares at the scene outside, “It’s funny how these things happen. I met him at Sainsbury’s, of all places, buying vegetables. Strange, isn’t it? Awfully nice bloke who works at an insurance agency, divorced with two children. I told him I do small-scale computer programming for some fabricated company. He still believes that’s what I do – wasn’t a very suspicious type. I liked him. He was very kind to me. I thought I could make it work, with my invented identity. Other high-ranking MI6 officers have done it before. Six months after we met, he told me he wanted to marry me. I accepted him. But I decided to break it off shortly after it happened. It didn’t feel right. I tried to fool myself, but deep down, I knew that I didn’t love him, not the way one should love someone that they’re about to marry. Something inside me was telling me that it wasn’t what I was meant to do. It wasn’t what I wanted.”

“And why not?”

“Because he wasn’t you, Mr Bond.”

It’s almost heart-breaking to hear how immediate and how certain Q’s answer is.

“Horribly stupid, aren't I? Always getting engaged, and never going through with it. Something's wrong with me, I suppose. But, I thought…” Q looks at his cup of tea, “I thought marrying him would be for the best, and I told myself that so many times. M encouraged it. He said it’d be good for me. I think he knew I wasn’t quite myself after you left. You know MI6’s policy – quartermasters, or any other MI6 officer, for that matter, are not to keep in contact with former agents. It’s improper and a potential security risk. Apparently, there was an incident a few decades back when a discharged Double-0 remained in close contact with several department heads and sold information to the Soviets.”

“I was unaware. I assumed you were…done dealing with me. I didn’t think you’d want to see me again, not after the conversation we had.”

Q laughs mirthlessly.

“You assume too much, Mr Bond.”

“I’m sorry. It was poor judgement on my part.”

"Indeed. But you should know that choosing to forsake a life with you was an extremely difficult decision for me to make."

"Do you regret any of it?" James asks, "Any of the things that happened between...us?"

"I don't know. Do you?"

"Never."

Q takes another sip of his tea, before setting it down with a tired sigh. There is a long, painful silence as he stares vacantly at his hands. It takes him a while to gather up the will to respond.

“I wanted to forget about you, Mr Bond, but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. I know it’s terribly unprofessional for me to say, but it’s been so bloody difficult. I thought about what you said, about trying to have lives of our own. I realised that people like me don’t have lives. Being one of the only seven people in the world able to interpret and break through certain computer codes isn’t so much of a blessing as it is a curse. They were more than happy to let you retire – you were a loose cannon towards the end of your time at MI6 and M was rather concerned, actually, but I’m not like you. You know MI6 will never let me go. One day, they’ll find me dead in front of a computer, my fingers still on the keys, be it with a bullet in my brain or with all the hairs on my head turned grey.”

“Q…”

“I’ve tried and tried, over and over again, to fall out of love with you, Mr Bond,” Q says, voice a nearly desperate whisper, “But I couldn’t stop thinking about you, not ever, and god knows how terribly I wanted to be with you. Not a day goes by when I wonder what it would have been like if I’d just…given it all up, like we’d talked about that day in the hospital. It’s the worst feeling in the world, loving someone who you’re contractually obliged to forget even existed, having to choose between him and an existence with some semblance of a purpose. You’ve been lucky enough to leave MI6 behind. It’s so rare for a Double-0 to ever get the chance, they usually die young. Why should I stick around as a clinging reminder of that life? And…And then there’s policy to consider. M would have my head if he knew I was with you right now, and…” He breaks off with a bitter laugh and buries his face in his hands.

“Oh, God. Why am I even saying all of this? If I could hear myself right now! For all I know, you could be married, with a wife and some lovely children in a beautiful house somewhere, and…God, I’m so sorry, Mr Bond. I’ve been so naïve and so stupid. It’s not my place to say things like this to you.”

“You’re many things, Q,” James says, “But you’re not stupid, and you never were.”

He wants to reach out and take those beautiful hands in his own once more. He wants to hold Q in his arms, safe against his chest. He wants to bury his nose in those dark curls and breathe in his smell – faint Earl Grey tea. He wants to do anything in the world, anything at all, if it would mean being with Q.

“I should go,” Q says, and he hastily begins to gather his things, “I’m sorry, Mr Bond. Please don’t try to contact me. It’ll only make trouble for the both of us. Don’t worry – I won’t be disturbing you any more.”

“But what if I wanted you to?”

“We don’t always get what we want.”

“Why shouldn’t we?”

Q laughs – halfway between a sob and a chuckle.

“You’ve not changed as much as I thought. You still think you can have anything and everything you want. You think you’re above the natural order, don’t you, Mr Bond?”

“The natural order is irrelevant,” James says bluntly, “It’s simple, Q. Do you want to be with me, or not?”

Q hesitates, looking at James with wide eyes. He looks almost like a child, and James is trying with all his might not to grab Q and kiss him right there in front of the entire café. God knows how terribly he wants to.

“Yes,” he finally whispers, “I do. But it’s nowhere near as simple as make it seem.”

“Why not?”

“Don’t play dumb. You know perfectly well, Mr Bond,” Q mutters, “You’ve been in the system long enough yourself to understand. What you do with your life is your own business, but what I do with mine is MI6’s business. We have standards to uphold and jobs to do. Having associations with a former Double-0 is hardly appropriate. MI6 is my life, Mr Bond. You know it as well as I do.”

“You don’t always have to play by the rules, you know.”

“Perhaps you don’t, but I still do.”

James is through with talking.

He grasps Q’s face between his hands and pulls him towards himself. Their lips meet so perfectly as if they were made for each other – James swears they might be – his lips are still rough and worn, and Q’s are still plush-soft as ever. The sensation of two anomalies meeting so purposefully is breath-taking. James has forgotten the feeling. It’s been two years since he’s last experienced it, and now that he remembers what it was like, how _right_ it feels, he wants nothing more than to hold onto Q and never let go of him ever again. He doesn’t care that they’re in public. He doesn’t care that people might be staring. This is how things were meant to be.


	12. Creatio Ex Nihilo

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been awfully busy and will continue to be for a while, so I dunno when the next chance I'll have to update will be - however, I've already nearly finished the next chapter, so we'll see if I'll have time to finish it up. I don't want to spoil anything right now, but I do have a brief point to make, so after you've read the chapter, don't forget to see the note at the end!
> 
> "Creatio ex nihilo" means something a bit like "creating something from nothing."

 

* * *

 

Somehow, the kiss quickly escalates into something else, and the next thing James knows, they are stumbling into James’ flat, lips still locked, hands grasping desperately at each other as if they are trying to find something to hold onto, lest they drop into an endless abyss.

James guides Q to the bedroom, and they fall backwards onto the mattress in perfect sync. The mattress dips deliciously under their combined weight, and Q has his fingers entangled with James’ as the former Double-0 trails reverent kisses down his neck. Q’s neatly buttoned shirt quickly becomes undone, and his prim cardigan is slipping off his shoulders. James seizes the opportunity to pepper reverent kisses across his collarbone, eliciting soft gasps from Q, who James quickly concludes is still a stranger to such sensations.

“They never touched you?” James asks, voice low as lips brush by Q’s ear, “The men you’ve been with before?”

“No,” Q breathes, and his cheeks are flushed a pretty rose-coloured hue, “Not like this. I…I didn’t want them to.”

It’s been far too long since James has been with someone like Q, someone unspoiled and unblemished. In some odd and primal way, it makes things all the sweeter and he tries not to grin.

He doesn’t want to be hasty, but before he knows it, he’s pulling the clothes from Q’s body and throwing them aside as he kisses his former quartermaster breathless. The cardigan falls noiselessly to the floor as he kicks off his own trousers, Q panting beneath him as they finally break off for much-needed oxygen. James feels light-headed. He doesn’t know if it’s because of the kissing, or because the sight of Q, naked as the day he was born and stretched out on his bed sheets, is enough to take what little breath he has left away.

Q looks frightened to meet James’ gaze. He is, after all, completely exposed to him. Q can't seem to help but reach for the sheets, trying to hide himself. James grabs his hand to stop him, and Q looks at him with wide eyes.

“Don’t be shy,” James murmurs, “You are so perfect.”

He doesn’t exaggerate. James Bond has travelled across the globe and back and has seen many beautiful things in his life, but nothing in the world can compare to this. He wants to worship this body beneath him, the soft curves, the porcelain flesh, the delicate lines. He wants to remember this image, this moment, lock it up and store it safely away in his memory becase he is something to be worshipped and admired, and by God, he is _beautiful._

He leans down to kiss Q again as Q’s fingers ghost over his chest and arms, feeling every muscle with quiet fascination. His fingertips leave electricity in their wake. How long has it been since James has felt like this, entangled in the arms another? He has wanted this so badly for so many years, and now that it’s finally his, he can feel the anticipation building until it crackles in the air.

With the utmost care, James positions himself between the young quartermaster’s slender legs. He slips a hand under Q’s back and trails his palm down his spine, dipping down to places previously untouched. Q lets out a loud gasp, his grip on James’ arms tightening exponentially. He tenses noticeably in his arms as James readies himself to delve into the unspoiled body beneath him.

“Wait,” Q says suddenly.

James stops immediately. He can sense that part of Q is afraid.

“Will it hurt?” Q asks in a hesitant whisper. His eyes are so wide, so innocent.

“It might at first,” James tells him. “If you don’t want this, all you have to do is tell me.”

“Yes – I mean no,” Q stammers, and his gaze flickers away as his cheeks flush scarlet, “I…Don’t. Don’t stop. Please.”

"You're sure, Q? We don't have to do this if you're not -"

"For fuck's sake, are we going to do it, or are we going to wait for you to die of old age first?" Q snaps irritably, and all hesitance has evaporated, "Just...Just  _do_ it. I'm serious."

“I’ll make it good for you,” James promises with a grin, and he swoops down to capture those sweet lips again.

  

* * *

 

 

James Bond has sex all the time. It’s nothing new for him. It had been something of a routine, both in his days working for MI6 and in the present. Find any girl that catches his eye, or sometimes a young man, charm them into bed, and have a casual toss in the sheets. Sometimes it’s to burn off stress. Sometimes it’s because he has so much pent-up energy that he doesn’t know what to do with. Sometimes it’s simply because he can. He is in no way a stranger to sex.

It is, however, much more difficult to remember when the last time he made love was.

Q is not just any person from some bar who he can lure to his room for a one-night-stand. He is not something to fuck without care. He is not a silly tart who he can simply leave behind in the morning, guilt-free. This is not simple, hassle-free, convenient sex. This is Q, his beautiful Q who needs to be treasured and treated with the utmost care and reverence. Q, who he has loved with every fibre of his body and soul for longer than he dares to admit.

It had hurt Q at first, but James knows his way around the human body and with a few gentle manoeuvres, it didn’t take long for the pain to melt away into pleasure. He had wanted this to be not only for himself, but good for Q as well. It had been slow and sensual and everything he’d imagined it would be. There was no rush. They had all the time in the world, and he had never felt anything so utterly and rapturously perfect before in his entire life. He had tumbled over the edge with his former quartermaster clinging onto him for dear life, slender legs wrapped beautifully around his waist, and the stars that exploded in his vision were so bright that they swallowed him whole and left him breathless on the bed sheets.

Now Q is curled against his bare chest, their bodies pressed together. James pulls the sheet further up over Q’s naked form, lest he catch a chill. His pale flesh appears almost luminous in the faint light. James strokes the boy’s dark curls affectionately before placing a brief kiss on his forehead.

“I love you, James,” Q says in the faintest of whispers, but James hears it loud and clear.

He kisses Q again and gently cups his cheek.

“You already know that I love you, too.”

It’s taken them years to reach the point where they can finally say it to each other. It's a tremendous relief for James, like something unbearably heavy has been lifted clear off his shoulders. 

There's a Latin phrase that James is familiar with -  _absit iniuria verbis._ It's an expression to convey a desire for one's words to not hurt the one they are addressed to. But, James has discovered, it is not words that cut the heart most deeply and most pervasively, but the lack thereof. 

Perhaps now those wounds can begin to heal. 

James reaches down to take Q’s hand, and Q curls into his embrace, his breath ghosting over James’ still bare chest. The room is completely still and silent, until Q finally speaks again.

“My name is Geoffrey,” he murmurs, “Geoffrey Boothroyd.”

James lets the name that has just left Q’s lips hang in the air. For so long, he had gone without even knowing the real name of the person he is so deeply and desperately in love with. Now that he knows, he feels rather strange, as if he has finally begun to unravel the mystery that is his former quartermaster.

“Would you prefer me to call you that?” he asks.

Q shakes his head.

“No. I never liked the sound of it. I like Q just fine.”

“Have it your way,” James says, and he kisses Q on the lips again.

They lie together like that for what seems like centuries. But it doesn’t matter. Time doesn’t matter. Nothing matters, except for what James has right here and right now.

Soon, Q is fast asleep.

Even like this, he looks lovely.

What would it be like to live the kind of life he’d always wanted with this beautiful creature that is lying in his arms? It’s difficult to picture, but James tries nevertheless. He imagines coming home every night to Q, falling asleep with him in his embrace and waking up in the mornings with him at his side, starting a family with him, being happy with him, treasuring him the way that he should be.

James watches his dark lashes flutter and listens to the sound of his soft breathing. It’s enough to make him remember that there are still things in the world that are good, things that are pure, things that are worth living and dying for. That's a feeling he could get used to. He can't help but smiles to himself before pulling the sleeping Q closer against his chest and holding him close, safe and sound. 

He’ll be damned if he ever lets go of him again. 

Retirement from MI6 really has made him a silly, sentimental old man.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right, so - as you might have noticed, I've added another warning to the tags, which might have led you to guess what happens in this chapter. I very deliberately made the sex non-graphic, for two reasons: 1) I feel that graphic descriptions of sex would break the rhythm and dismantle the atmosphere that seems to hover over the story as a whole, and 2) It'd be utter shite because I really can't write sex scenes well at all, even non-graphically. As I've mentioned before, this is my first time writing a fic at all. So if the chapter was at all awkward like something from a shitty romance novel (which I feel it was, a wee bit), then I'm terribly sorry. I did think it was, in a way, "necessary," however, because the sex is not sex just for sex's sake, but a bit of a sort-of-not-really metaphor for the level of trust, intimacy, and understanding the two of them have finally been able to reach, even after 2 years of separation.
> 
> Oh - and about Q's name, as I'm sure you are all aware, "Geoffrey Boothroyd" is the canon name of one of the former Qs. However, I didn't really think I could do our Q justice with an invented name, so I rather un-creatively recycled the name of the old Q. Sorry about that.


	13. Aegri Somnia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took me so long to update! And such a brief chapter, too. I've been horribly busy. The next update might be a little slow, as well, so again, I'm very sorry about that.
> 
> "Aegri somnia" means "troubled dreams" in Latin.

 

* * *

 

When James opens his eyes in the morning, Q is gone.

He almost laughs at the irony of it. James Bond, the king of the one night stand, has become the one who is being stood up. He places a hand on the space next to him - where a body had once lain at his side, there is only fabric. It feels cool under his touch and leaves no trace of anyone having been there at all. Q has been gone for hours.

James doesn’t move. He closes his eyes and exhales, shaking his head. If it was anyone else, the situation might have been funny, but it’s not just anyone else. It’s Q.

“Fuck,” he mutters under his breath, because he has yet again let Q slip through his fingers like the steam from a freshly brewed mug of Earl Grey tea, or the smoke from a gun that has just been fired. He supposes he must have come quite some way since his days at MI6 if he hadn’t even been able to detect his former quartermaster’s departure. It’s funny how much two years can do to you. But he should have seen this coming. He’d been naïve and stupid to think that it would have ended differently. Of course, he and Q have entirely separate lives now, and he can't honestly be so selfish as to ask Q to disobey M and breach protocol to be with him. 

He lies there in his bed, completely still, for what must have been hours, staring at the ceiling, unthinking and unfeeling. Every pore of his body is numb. It's not that he can't think or feel, it's just that he doesn’t know _what_ he’s supposed to be thinking or feeling. He has no idea. Who would? All he knows is one thing, one simple fact –

Q is gone.

His beautiful Q, his everything. Gone.

Gone,  like his childhood days that are so distant that they aren’t even blurred memories anymore. Like Skyfall, that is now nothing more than a pile of ashes and a series of long-forgotten moments. Like the last, brittle, dying autumn leaf that still clings feebly to its branch until the winter breeze tears it away and flings it out into the wide, achingly unending world.

Gone.

And it’s not likely James will ever see him again.

As he tries to rationalise what he has allowed to transpire, at first, he thinks he should be angry with Q for coming back into his life, cruelly raising his hopes, and then turning his back on him yet again. The taste of abandonment is still all too fresh in his mouth, bitter and pervasive. Then, he thinks he should be angry at himself himself for letting Q go. And finally, that quickly turns into thinking that he should be angry at the fact that he had let himself become so foolishly sentimental for a past he can't go back to, and for a messy-haired, scrawny, bespectacled boy in a cardigan who cannot and will not be able to make him happy in the ways he had once quite idiotically believed to be possible.

James isn’t sure how, but he some way or another, he manages to summon the willpower to climb out of bed and get dressed. He feels like a dead man walking as he pulls a shirt over his head – although he still hates clichés, be they actions or figures of speech – but it’s true. He cannot feel a single spark of soul left within himself, no sense of purpose, no prospect of anything left on earth that is worth staying alive for, nothing. He feels hollow. MI6 had taken most of himself away, and what little was left had walked right out his door with Q.

He trudges into the kitchen, makes himself a cup of tea, and draws open the curtains in the kitchen window. Hardly any light comes through to illuminate the dim room. It’s another bleak grey morning in London, just like every other morning he has woken up to as of late.

Perhaps the whole encounter with Q had only been a dream.

Yes, James thinks, that must be it. It had all been nothing more than a dream, and now, he has been pulled harshly by his throat back to reality.

The world does not work in a way that James would conveniently happen upon his former quartermaster, and there was no way that said quartermaster would still have any sort of feelings for him after two long, empty years. There was no way any of it could have happened. Some things are just too good to be true.

He supposes he had dreamt of Q simply because he misses him so damn much - more than he would ever dare to admit.

It takes James a grand total of twelve minutes to notice the slip of paper sitting on his kitchen table. He has to admit that he’s quite embarrassed at how much his perceptiveness has managed to deteriorate over the course of two short years. He’s getting old, he supposes. The inevitability of time. Someone had said those words to him once upon a cold London morning not unlike this one in a museum that he can only remember vaguely.

Q.

He sets his cup of tea back down on the table and picks up the sheet of paper. A phone number is printed there in Q’s immaculate, mechanically neat handwriting, and below it is a brief message.

_I’m sorry. Early start at MI6. You of all people should understand._

_Last night, I told you that I loved you. I want you to know that I meant it._

_I’m willing to give us another try. I think it deserves a second chance. You can define what "us" means by yourself. I’m not very picky. But I'm not making any promises, either. If you feel the same way, then you know what to do._

_If not, then goodbye and good luck._

-          _Q_

James reads the note over and over again. Two times. Five times. A hundred times. A thousand times. The words imprint themselves on his brain and sink into his mind. He hadn't been dreaming after all.

He folds the paper up into a tiny square and curls his fingers around it.

It takes him a few moments to realise that he can feel again.

  

* * *

 

 

As Q starts spending his nights at James’ flat more and more, James starts learning lots of things about Q that he hadn’t known before. Little things. Little things that come together and somehow make this beautiful boy who he admits to love so dearly.

He learns that Q likes listening to classical music. There is nothing but notes, unlike the mess of words and artificial electronic noises you hear on the radio. It's music, pure music, with nothing superfluous, and it puts him at ease. Schubert and Debussy are his favourites. His father had taken him to a classical concert once when he was a child, and he had fallen in love instantaneously.

Q likes reading, which doesn't surprise James very much. He’s very fond of Chaucer and Dickens in particular. His ideal Sunday morning would be spent curled by the windowsill with a hot cup of Earl Grey and a nice, thick novel in his hands, computer turned off and put away, out of sight.

He enjoys black-and-white films of days gone by. It makes him feel oddly nostalgic for a period of time that he’s never lived through or experienced. Perhaps it’s because it makes him think of times that were simpler, times without cyber terrorism and computers and endless strings of code, times where he would not be Q, and where he would simply be Geoffrey Boothroyd.

Q does, contrary to popular belief, drink things other than Earl Grey tea. He drinks at least eight glasses of water a day, as doctors claim is the healthy amount, and sometimes, depending on his mood, he can be tempted into having a glass of champagne.

He suffers from an insatiable sweet tooth. It’s only non-applicable to his tea, which he prefers plain and strong. He has a terrible weakness for treacle sponge pudding, stemmed from a lovely childhood of being spoiled rotten by his mother, who, incidentally, had been both a formidable woman and a terrific cook.

Q doesn’t like cats - which does surprise James. They make him nervous because they are so twitchy and jumpy and so mercurial in mood. His greatest fear as a child had been his grandmother’s ferocious and abnormally large tabby. He prefers dogs because they are much less complex creatures. He has always wanted one, though the time commitment he has to make to MI6 makes raising and training a dog rather impossible and impractical.

Sometimes, James drives Q to work, because the Tube is a great bloody nightmare during peak hours. He buys a plastic shopping basket full of classical CDs and plays them for Q on those drives. Consequently, Q goes to work in a pleasant mood.

One day, James finds a first edition of _Great Expectations_ buried somewhere in a cramped book shop smelling strangely enough of pine needles, and finds some well-worn but beautiful copies of Chaucer’s works as well – _The Canterbury Tales_ , and some collections of poems. He surprises Q with them one night and Q is so pleased that he is speechless for a full five minutes.

Another time, James spends a good five hours perusing the internet for an appropriate treacle sponge pudding recipe. The ingredients are easy enough to gather, but it takes him several hours to wrestle said ingredients into a passable pudding. When Q arrives at his flat later that night, James pours them each a glass of champagne, turns on Hitchcock’s _Vertigo_ , and they sit down on the couch and share the pudding. James thinks it tastes like wallpaper, but Q cheerfully claims it’s just as good as how his mother used to make it. He supposes Q is just being polite, but at least he tried.

Finally, a dog somehow ends up in his flat, surrounded by assorted toys and giant bags of dog food. He’s a rather ugly old thing, all skin and bones – a greyhound – but with James at work for half the day and Q away for even longer, James had supposed that getting a puppy would be quite impractical. Instead, he’d found an adult dog at the local shelter, which he’d figured wouldn’t make as big of a mess as a puppy. Apparently, the greyhound had been bred as a racing dog, and when he was no longer at the prime of his racing youth, he had been tossed away. It somehow reminds James of himself. The greyhound is a quiet and relatively well-mannered dog, which he appreciates, and he spends the afternoon bathing him and acquainting him to his flat.

He sends Q a text message and tells him that he is urgently needed that night.

Q comes as quickly as he can after leaving the office, and when he walks through the door – James had gotten him his own set of keys to the flat – the incredulous look on his face when he sees the dog sitting on the carpet is utterly priceless.

Q and the greyhound get on exceedingly well. Q names him Chanticleer, after the brilliant specimen of a rooster in _The Canterbury Tales_ (“Because he’s _such_ a handsome boy.”), and James is almost jealous at the way Q fawns over him. But he has to admit that he loves the way that Q sees so much beauty in such a gangly old dog.

James supposes that Q must see something similar in him, too.


	14. Quo Fata Ferunt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while since my last update - this one's rather brief, too, and almost purely dialogue. I've come to realise that my "style" seems to be making dialogue the centre of the narrative as opposed to action. I'm sorry if you find it boring, but in my own defence, this is, after all, a story about words (both said and unsaid). All of that aside, I'm not sure if I'm entirely happy with how this chapter came out, but oh well. I don't have the capacity (or motivation) to get it where I want it at the moment.
> 
> "Quo fata ferunt" means "Where/Wherever fate takes us" in Latin.

 

* * *

 

“You might as well move in,” James tells Q one night as they are curled on the bed, Chanticleer stretched out at their feet.

“Maybe,” Q says as he rests his head against James’ chest.

“You sleep here almost every night, and you already have your own set of keys to the flat,” James continues, “And besides, Chanticleer likes you infinitely better than me.”

“M wouldn’t approve.”

James stiffens.

“And you think he would approve of _this?_ For God’s sake, Q, you said that he’d skin you alive if he even knew you were still contacting me. I think we’ve gone well past the point of whether or not M will approve. If you swore you would forsake me for your job more than two years ago, then what the hell are we doing now? Just to make thing clear, _you_ were the one who said you were going choose MI6 over me.”

Q goes still in his arms.

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly, “You must resent me terribly for that.”

James’ expression softens.

“No,” he says, and he kisses Q on the forehead, “I could never resent you.”

There is a long silence between them. Q doesn’t move. When James looks down, he sees the boy’s brows furrow and he wonders what is going on in that high-speed brain of his. He feels a subtle pang of guilt in his chest. It’s selfish of him, and unfair to Q. As they have previously established, MI6 is Q’s life, as it was once James’. It’s not something that can be easily left behind. God knows it’s been difficult for James, but James is getting old, and Q is still young. There is still plenty waiting for Q if he opens the right doors. There’s not much left for James, and to pull Q away from those doors is not what he wants to do, no matter how badly he wants him at his side.

“I’ll speak to M at the end of the week,” Q says finally, albeit hesitantly, “I’ll collect my things and hand in my notice.”

“Don’t,” James murmurs into Q’s hair, “Don’t do that. Not for me.”

“Who says I’m doing it for you, you silly old dog?”

“I’m serious, Q,” James says, “It’s not my place to ask you to give up anything.”

“It most certainly isn’t, but it’s my choice, isn’t it?”

“You make everything so black-and-white. We don’t always have to choose.”

“Then what do you suggest we do?”

“Things are fine the way they are right now,” James tells him, and he places a kiss on Q’s cheek, another on his collarbone, and a third on his lips. “We don’t have to make things any more complicated than they need to be.”

Q sighs, his fingers brushing against James’ chin.

“Sooner or later, someone is going to find out.”

“And what are they going to do about it?” James says, “Sack you? As if. You’re too valuable.”

“I don’t suppose they’d accept my resignation, either,” Q mutters, “Although it wouldn’t be too difficult for me to go off the radar. Delete my files and disappear.”

“That’s a bit drastic.”

“And foolish.”

“They’d find you eventually.”

“I know. It was only a thought.”

Another long silence lingers between them, thick and stagnant and solid. Chanticleer hops off the bed and slinks away, as if he has no desire to partake in the matter. James doesn’t blame him. This isn’t a problem that he likes facing, either. He supposes that is what MI6 does to you. It takes away your life and the people you love. It makes it impossible to try to fix what's broken inside of you. 

“We’ll make it work,” James finally says, and he grips Q’s hand tightly and gives it what he hopes is a comforting squeeze.

Q doesn’t answer.

They both know it’s a hollow promise.

That’s the trouble with people like them. There's never any sense of certainty.

  

* * *

 

 

M doesn’t even bother to feign surprise when James turns up unannounced and uninvited in his office one grey Tuesday morning.

“I suppose I should be worried that it’s so easy for an ex-operative to let himself in,” M says, and he gives James a half-hearted smile. He looks tired, James notes, and he doesn’t blame him, “I see you still have some of that old hard-headedness in you. Have a seat.”

“It’s good to see you, M,” James says and he sits down in the visitor’s chair. M leans back in his own chair, brow creased as he rubs his temples warily.

“Likewise, Mr Bond,” M replies, and he folds his hands on the surface of his desk, all business and professional posture once again, just as James remembers him. “I assume you have something in particular that you need to speak to me about, if you’ve taken the trouble to slip past security – which is the best in the country, I might add, but then again, you were one of our best as well. How can I help you?”

“I’m afraid it might not be an entirely appropriate subject.”

M smiles dryly at him.

“It’s about Q, isn’t it?”

James stiffens visibly in his seat. M is watching him with a calculating, albeit cryptic gaze. If the Ms have anything in common, it is their uncanny ability to look horribly patronising with a disturbingly small amount of effort.

“Yes,” James finally says, and he wonders if what he has with Q is that obvious. It’s quite possible that MI6 has been keeping its tabs on Q, or maybe even James himself. Maybe they’ve tapped their phones, maybe they’ve had people follow them. Whatever they’ve done, James is quite sure he doesn’t care to find out. Either way, it makes no difference. M knows, and that is that.

“You’re treading on very thin ice, Mr Bond,” M tells him, as if he doesn’t already know that. “It’s not just a security issue. Q is an asset. There are also liabilities to consider here. I’m sure you know how foolish you both are being, and I’m sure you are aware of the magnitude of the damage you are capable of causing with your irresponsibility and lack of professionalism.”

“I’m very aware.”

“I have to admit that I didn’t expect this kind of behaviour from you or Q – especially since it’s been over two years since you resigned. I saw to it that you left with was owed to you.”

James can’t help but let out a bark of laughter.

“I don’t care about your monetary compensation,” he tells M, “It’s irrelevant. I had the majority of my adult life, years that I should have had for myself, taken away. We don’t choose MI6. MI6 chooses us. You know that just as well as I do. Money can’t make up for any of that lost time or any of those chances at a normal life that I never had.”

“And you think Q can?”

“I don’t think it. I know it.”

M gives James another one of his vague smiles.

“I reiterate that this is all very irresponsible and very unprofessional,” he muses aloud, “Any employee of MI6 having relations with a former Double-0 is against regulation in at least ten different ways. Then again, so was encouraging Q’s insubordination in assisting you in luring Raoul Silva to Skyfall.”

“You knew about that?”

“Naturally.”

“And you encouraged him?”

“I don’t regret it.”

“You are a strange man, M.”

“Not quite as strange as you, Mr Bond.”

M’s smile is a little more pleasant now, although James can see that he is still on guard. There is nothing stopping him from calling security to escort James out by force, but he hasn’t yet, and James assumes that he must have done something right if he’s not been kicked out onto the street on his arse yet. James watches M’s gaze drift for a moment to a small framed photograph on his desk – a pretty woman and a little girl and boy. M’s wife and children, James assumes.

“What exactly are you planning?” M asks, “Surely, you must have something in mind.”

James shrugs.

“Does there really need to be a plan? Whatever happens, happens.”

The corner of M’s lip twitches upwards.

“I'm afraid it won't be so simple,” he says, “We look after Q, we provide for him, we give him generous wages and a roof over his head. Q is an asset for us and a valuable target for Britain’s enemies. There are bounties on his head, you know. Plenty of people who would love to see him dead, if only they could figure out his identity. I am perfectly willing to allow him to continue on at his post while maintaining his relations with you. However, I will be unable to have his activities outside of MI6 monitored lest someone less – lenient than I, shall we say – catches wind of it. I’m not asking you to return to work as an operative. What I’m asking is merely whether or not you still have any of 007 left in you. I don’t mean to drag you back into a world that I’m sure you no longer have any desire to be a part of, but it’s inevitable, if you are insistent on getting Q involved. I won’t be able to guarantee him MI6’s security or protection outside of our doors. Can you give him that?”

James nods.

"I hope you're quite serious about this, Mr Bond. Don't take this personally, but let's be honest. You had a bit of a reputation when you served us for being..." He trails off, as if trying to frame his meaning as tastefully as possible, but appears to give up shortly afterwards. "To be blunt, Mr Bond, you've not exactly been known to be the type to make commitments or to take relationships very seriously at all. I'm not accusing you of anything, but if you're looking to Q for little more than...sexual gratification, then-"

"I can assure you that I'm completely serious," James interjects rather defensively, "You forget that I'm not 007 any longer, but either way, I never did - and never will - have any intention to mistreat Q or to take advantage of him. Would it stretch belief to say that I care about him? He makes me happy. I do my best to reciprocate. Commitment is a young man's problem. It's not mine any more. I couldn't care less what you think - I love him. I might even ask him to marry me someday. But I don't expect you to believe that, either."

"There's no need to be so confrontational," M replies testily, "I believe you, Mr Bond. Thank you for being candid with me."

"So, have you changed your mind about allowing Q to continue seeing me?"

“No. I trust you. But you must promise me, Mr Bond, to keep a close eye on Q and make sure that you will never enter a situation that might compromise his safety, and if you somehow do – some things are out of our control – then I expect that you will put things right. I cannot legally order you to do this, as you are no longer an operative of mine, but it’s all I ask in exchange for my leniency. Both you and Q will be at risk at all times due to Q’s value to us, and if anything should happen, I will have to deny any knowledge of your relationship with Q, and this conversation will never have happened.”

“Of course,” James says, and he nods again.

He must say, though, the whole situation is a little funny. It feels like it’s 1952 and he’s asking Q’s father for permission to take him to dinner.

“Take good care of him,” M says with yet another vague smile, “Though I admit I can’t imagine him being in better hands.”

“Thank you, M.”

“There’s no need to thank me. Good luck, Mr Bond, and I expect that if you could let yourself in, then you can see yourself out as well.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually quite like the character of M. There was a lot of ambiguity around him in Skyfall - is he just another suit, or is there something more? Of course, him encouraging Q to assist James in laying the trail for Silva to follow was rather unexpected and made us all think he's perhaps not so much locked into formal structure as we originally thought - that's sort of my reasoning behind his conversation with James in this chapter. There will be more of M to come in the next chapters. I do find him to be a very interesting character who's always stepping in and out of the "grey area" and hope to give him a slightly bigger role.
> 
> Look forward to progression into the third part of the story and a wee bit more action!


	15. Nemo Mortalium Omnibus Horis Sapit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry it's taken me so long to update! I got distracted by a one-shot, which I posted a few days ago. But to make up for it, I've made this chapter a wee bit longer. I did promise more action and more M, after all. It's been rather a slow burn, hopefully my attempt to make things move a little faster will make the story more exciting.
> 
> Rather long chapter title - "Nemo mortalium omnibus horis sapit" literally means "no mortal is wise all of the time," or, in other words, "Even the wisest make mistakes." Uh-oh.

 

* * *

 

James and Q fall easily into somewhat of a routine.

James is usually the first to arrive home in the late afternoon, and the first thing he does is take Chanticleer outside to do his business, although the dog doesn’t have much energy in his old and tired bones to walk around for long. Q usually doesn’t come back until late at night, often well into the wee hours, and sometimes, he doesn’t come back at all. But James doesn’t mind. He understands the demands of working for MI6.

Much of the time, when Q returns, he’s exhausted and goes straight to bed without having anything to eat. On those occasions, James is sure to wake up early so there is an extra-nourishing breakfast ready for the young quartermaster. They’ll eat together, being sure to feed Chanticleer as well – James has his breakfast accompanied by a cup of black coffee, and Q always opts for earl grey.

They’re still a long way off from having a completely “normal” life. There’s still much about them that’s up in the air and subject to change. James has to admit that he wishes Q could spend more time with him, but there’s nothing either of them can do about it but take advantage of what time they do get to share. There is something very comforting in the level of trust that they have reached. James has no reason to suspect that Q’s late nights have to do with anything unrelated to work, and Q has a solid amount of faith in the notion that James is no longer the infamous womaniser he once was, and that he won’t seek out the “company” of others on the days that Q is unable to return.

In any case, James is always ready and waiting to welcome Q home.

He isn’t sure when he’d started thinking of his flat as a _home_ – up until recently, it hadn’t been much to him but a place to sleep in. It doesn’t take him long to realise that it’s the fact that he now shares this space with Q that makes it home.

Thoughts like these often cross his mind at night, this particular one being no exception. It’s comforting, he thinks as he lies alone in the bed he shares with Q, and it makes nights like these less lonely. In an odd way, it still feels like Q is right next to him at this very moment.

Right on cue, James hears the sound of the front door opening and closing and Q’s soft footsteps in the kitchen as he greets old Chanticleer in a tired but happy voice.

James’ eyes drift to the clock. It is just past 2AM.

He lies there, closes his eyes, and listens to Q changing into his pyjamas. It’s not hard to guess that Q is trying to make as little noise as possible. He doesn’t like to be sappy, but it’s heart-warming to know that Q is considerate enough to try his best not to wake him up – although, unbeknownst to the boy, James is not actually asleep.

A moment later, Q crawls into bed and slides under the covers, lying down beside James. James rolls over to face him, and Q looks surprised at this.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers rather guiltily, “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t,” James assures him, kissing his cheek and wrapping an arm around his former quartermaster, pulling him closer. With a yawn, Q settles comfortably against James’ chest, his head resting on the spot above his heart.

“You’re still wearing your glasses, stupid,” James snorts.

“Am I really?” Q asks sleepily, and James plucks them off the bridge of Q’s nose before setting them down on the bedside table. He looks back down at Q, who is staring back with wide eyes.

“You are so beautiful,” James murmurs, and he presses an affectionate kiss to Q’s forehead before placing another on his lips.

“And you’re so full of shit,” Q retorts.

“I wasn’t joking.”

“Neither was I.”

“Upstart little boffin.”

“Old man.”

“All right,” James concedes, “You win this time.”

But Q is already fast asleep, tucked snugly against James’ chest. James can’t help but smile to himself – Q looks so innocent like this, so guileless. No-one would ever be able to tell that this boy is indeed capable of causing chaos with a few well-placed taps on his keyboard. He supposes that’s what he’s always liked about Q, and why he’s always been so fascinated by him – there certainly more than meets the eye to him.

Gently, James pulls the blanket further up over Q’s shoulders, listens to the sound of his soft breathing and takes a moment to savour the warmth of their bodies pressing together.

It’s not long before he finds himself drifting off into a comfortable sleep as well.

 

* * *

 

 

James gets off work at his usual time, and in high spirits, he stops at the store on his way home to pick up groceries. Q insists that since James is getting older, he needs to eat healthier, and has painstakingly compiled a strict diet of fruits, vegetables, lean meat, and little sugar, based on extensive research he’d done himself. James had decided to humour Q and go along with his dietary suggestions, and Q makes sure that he sticks to a weekly grocery list.

He’s quick to grab the things on Q’s list. Q had sent him a text message earlier in the day, saying that he was leaving the office and heading back to the flat early, so James’ eagerness to see him and spend some quality time together makes him hurry.

It’s funny, James thinks, the sentimentality he feels when he thinks about Q. As he slides into the seat of his car, he pauses for a moment. Q’s been living with him for a while now, and since M already knows and has given his reluctant approval, what’s stopping him from asking Q to marry him?

Perhaps he’s afraid to take such a big step. It’s not commitment he is afraid of. That was a fear he only had as a young man, but he’s older and wiser now, and more willing to settle down. It’s taken him a while to realise that what he fears is rejection. The thing that does worry him is whether or not Q feels the same, or if they are on the same page. Q is, after all, still young, and has a very promising career ahead of him. He might not want to get bogged down in the mess marriage can become. And Q hasn’t even sold his own flat yet, despite the fact that he hasn’t set foot in it in months and has instead made James’ flat his home. But the fact remains that if Q has kept his flat, then he is likely unsure of where this is all going to go and still considers the possibility that it won’t work out with a substantial amount of weight.

What they have between them now is fine, James thinks. It works. It’s good enough for him. He can think about proposing later, when things become more concrete.  He reassures himself that holding off is the right thing to do at this stage before starting up the car and heading home.

When he parks his car, steps out, and looks up at the complex of flats, he feels a strange sense of foreboding that he can’t quite place. Perhaps it’s the eerie stillness in the air. He shrugs the feeling off. There’s no reason to think there’s anything wrong. It’s a normal day, like any other, and he’ll see his beautiful Q in just a few moments. The thought is enough to disperse any negative energy in his mind, and he puts his hands in his coat pockets before walking through the building’s front doors, ascending the staircase towards his flat.

But the nagging feeling in his gut has not been entirely chased away, and it rears its head again as he nears the door of his flat. He is, after all, still conditioned to rely on instinct. James reaches for the doorknob, and he hesitates as he realises the door is unlocked. The sense of foreboding returns with a vengeance, and James furrows his brow and pushes the door open.

He is greeted with silence.

Chanticleer does not hobble over to greet him as he normally does, nor does James hear the sound of Q typing away at his laptop. In fact, he hears nothing at all. He removes his coat and hangs it up, trying to stay calm as he sets down the bags of groceries. There are plenty of perfectly reasonable explanations to the eerie silence. Q might have taken Chanticleer on a walk and had simply forgotten to lock the door. It’s a logical and rational explanation. Q is usually very meticulous about things like locking doors and windows, but he’s human and prone to the occasional mistake.

“Q?” he calls, and receives no response.

The silence is deafening and stifling. It sends chills down James spine. Every part of his body is screaming that something is wrong. Something is _terribly_ wrong.

He walks into the kitchen, and then it hits him.

The stench of blood.

There is crimson splattered across the tiles. Under the table lies Chanticleer’s body, the old dog’s head an unrecognisable mass of gore. Bile rushes up James throat. He knows what’s happened immediately. The dog has been shot, several times, deliberately so, and the poor thing’s head had been blown to pieces, smeared on the kitchen floor.

One of the chairs at the table has been knocked over, indicating a struggle. Q’s bag has been tossed carelessly onto the floor, its contents strewn every which way, but his laptop and mobile are nowhere to be found, nor is there any sign of Q himself.

An icy wave of panic crashes over James like a tidal wave. It hits him hard in the gut and then squeezes the air out of his lungs.

“Q!?” he shouts, and again, he is met with silence.

James searches the flat wildly, tearing through each of its rooms. Half of him is possessed by an overwhelming terror that he will find Q lying dead in one of the rooms, and the other half is gripped by the dreadful thought that he has been abducted.

It soon becomes clear that Q is not in flat, and has not been for at least an hour or two. He never thought he’d be relieved to think that Q has been taken away, but at least it means that he’s probably still alive. If someone has taken him instead of simply shooting him dead in the flat, then they have a use for him. They won’t have killed him.

Yet.

James tries to push away the sharp, raw fear that oozes through his veins. Now is no time to panic. It won’t help him, and it most certainly won’t help Q. He needs to focus. He needs to find out who has taken Q, and where they have taken him.

Another survey of the flat reveals no sign of the windows having been opened from the outside. He checks the door again, and discovers that the lock is broken – the door had been forced open. Had Q’s abductor – or abductors – been waiting inside? How had they known that Q was staying with him? If they’d been through his MI6 files, it would have led them to his personal address. Or had they followed him home and waited until he was safely inside with his guard down to make their move?

There are too many questions, and James doesn’t know the answer to any of them.

He needs help. He needs MI6.

The last thing James wants to do is get involved with MI6 again, but what other options does he have? Calling the police will make this public. And trying to do everything alone seems completely unfeasible at the moment, given James’ current state of retirement from MI6. And besides, this is not about him or his pride or his life. It’s about finding Q and getting him to safety.

Slowly, he dials M’s number.

“Can I help you, Mr Bond?”

James hesitates.

“It’s about Q,” he says finally, “I think he’s been taken.”

There is a long silence on the other end of the line.

“You’d better come in, then.”

 

* * *

 

M is visibly upset when James arrives. Or, perhaps “upset” is an understatement.

He is absolutely furious.

“I _knew_ this would happen,” M says acidly, “I knew the moment we loosened up security around Q, someone would leap at the chance to snatch him away.” He is trying to control his temper, but James can practically see the agitation radiating off of him in waves as he paces restlessly back and forth in front of Q’s desk in Q-Branch’s central office.

Q-Branch has been put on high alert and Q’s subordinates have attempted to locate Q via tracking signal, but the tracking device on his person has been disabled.

“You,” M finally spits out, rounding on James, “I trusted you to protect him. I was willing to make a compromise, and you failed to uphold your end of the bargain. You swore that you would give him security in lieu of MI6’s. I trusted you, and you let me down. You let Q down. And you’ve bloody well let all of MI6 down, too. Do you have any idea what this means!? Q is an _asset_ , as I’ve already been sure to tell you. If we lose him, Mr Bond, we’re _fucked_ , for lack of a better word.”

James doesn’t know how to answer.

It’s true, he thinks. He’s let everyone down, Q most of all. He had rather arrogantly assured M that he was capable of keeping Q safe. It was a promise he never should have made. He doesn’t have the means to protect Q. Q needs MI6’s security, not the empty promises of a retired field operative. James isn’t 007 any longer, after all, and because of his negligence, Q is gone.

“I’m sorry,” he finally manages to say, because there really isn’t anything else he can think of that will placate M, “I was stupid. I take full responsibility for what happened.”

M’s expression softens. He lets out a tired sigh and shakes his head, pushing his hair back from his forehead.

“Of course this isn’t your fault, Mr Bond,” he says, voice strained. It’s taking him some considerable effort to calm himself down. “I’m the one that should be sorry. I lost my temper and wanted someone to point fingers at. It was rather unfair of me to expect you to single-handedly ensure Q’s security, anyway. No-one could have predicted that someone would try to kidnap him. We’ll…We’ll do the best we can to resolve the matter.”

“I’ll have you know that I intend on doing everything and anything I can to help,” James tells him firmly, “I’ll make this right.”

M gives him another tired look.

“You have no obligation, Mr Bond. Q is one of ours. We’ll take care of it. I’d hate to be selfish enough to drag you back into matters that you’ve tried to leave behind.”

“That’s irrelevant. I’d do anything for Q.”

“You’re really serious about this, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

Tanner appears from somewhere outside of James’ peripheral vision, looking distraught. He glances at James and gives him a brief nod as greeting.

“Sir,” he says to M, voice urgent, “We’ve received an alert. The former 009 has been missing from his containment unit since yesterday afternoon.”

M’s face darkens, and James fears that he might let his temper run rampant again.

“And they’ve only just decided to tell us!?” he shouts, slamming his hand on the desk, jostling the various items strewn across it. “Bloody _idiots_ , they are. I want a team investigating the matter right away, and I want him apprehended immediately.”

Suddenly it hits James.

“Do you think this has anything to do with Q’s disappearance?” he asks, “It’s possible that 009 was involved. Q’s been his target in the past. Who’s to say he isn’t still a target now?”

M seems to understand what James is getting at immediately.

“Tanner, I want to know if Q was followed home today, and by whom. Get me CCTV from outside our building, and from the street Mr Bond lives on as well.”

“Yes, Sir,” Tanner says, and immediately gets to work at one of the computers, with James and M hovering tensely on either side of him. Tanner is no way at Q’s calibre when it comes to computers – hardly anyone in the world at all is – but he still knows his way around. He really is indispensable, James thinks, and reminds himself to start giving Tanner a little more credit from now on.

Tanner begins to go through surveillance footage from around when Q had clocked out earlier in the day. James watches the screen carefully, looking for anything suspicious – any signs of anyone waiting for Q outside the building. Suddenly, Tanner frowns.

“Sir,” he says, glancing uncertainly at M, “There’s a problem.”

“What is it?”

“There’s a chunk missing from the footage,” he says, “It looks like someone’s cut it out. See, right here – the timestamp skips forward. Someone’s definitely removed it. But there’s no sign of anyone having been in the system. It’s like they’ve erased their footprints. There aren’t many people at all who are good enough to slip into our system unnoticed, and leave no sign or alert…except for Q himself.”

“Do you think he did it?” M asks with a frown, “But that doesn’t make sense.”

“When I got back to my flat,” James says, “Q’s bag was there on the ground, but I couldn’t find his laptop or mobile anywhere. I think whoever took him had him take them along as well. It’s not unlikely at all that he’s had time to break into the system and erase that piece of footage – probably under duress. He made all of MI6’s firewalls himself, after all.”

Suddenly, the screen goes black, startling Tanner.

“What’s going on?” M demands, “What’s happened?”

“I don’t know, Sir,” Tanner mutters, tapping furiously away at the keys, but nothing happens, and the screen remains black. “It’s stuck. I’m afraid I’m not quite sure how to fix it –”

Before Tanner can try anything else, a small dialogue box appears in the centre of the screen. It is blank for a moment, before text begins to appear, letter by letter. M’s brow furrows.

_An eye for an eye._

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” M snaps.

_Hello, M._

All three of them freeze.

Tanner is the first to come to his senses.

“There’s someone in our system!” he shouts to Q’s subordinates, “See if you can figure out where it’s coming from!”

The room begins to buzz with activity as Tanner quickly takes command of the office, but M and James’ eyes are still fixed rigidly on the computer screen as more text begins to appear.

_Do you remember me, M?_

_Of course you do._

“Sir,” Tanner says, face grim, “I think it’s Q again. Someone’s probably having him hack in and relay their messages.”

M nods, but he’s only half-listening, his attention still concentrated on the small dialogue box in the centre of the ominously black screen.

_I’m sure you remember everyone who was ever under your charge. How could you not? After all, the guilt of taking away any chance of a normal life for us must gnaw terribly. How happy you must be, with a lovely family and a comfortable home, while the rest of us suffer. Don’t you find that very unfair? How do you sleep at night, M?_

M’s fists clench and unclench at his sides. James watches a bead of sweat roll down the side of his face.

_An eye for an eye._

Suddenly, M seems to understand.

He swears loudly, dashing for the door.

“Tanner, you’re in charge until I get back!” he shouts, ignoring the bewildered expression on Tanner’s face as he wrenches the office doors open, James following close behind, “Find out where they’re hacking in from!”

“Let me drive,” James says as they hurry to the car park, “I think I still have a little bit of 007 left in me, contrary to what you might think.”

They slide into the car, and James doesn’t wait for M to settle down into his seat before speeding out into the street.

“I need you to get to my house,” M says, breathing heavily, clearly in a state of panic, “I think…I think they’re going after my family.”

James makes a sharp turn, directing the car into a side street as M hastily tells him the quickest way to get to his house. It’s located in a suburb outside of London, and it’s a miracle that they are not stopped by the police as James tears down the road.

In the seat next to him, M looks as pale as a sheet. James doesn’t blame him. He knows the feeling of fear and helplessness at the thought that a loved one is in danger. He’s just experienced it himself earlier in the day.

But even at the speed James is driving at, weaving expertly through traffic, zooming through intersections, and lurching around corners, it still takes them a little under twenty minutes to arrive.

As soon as they reach their destination, James has barely parked the car before M tears off his seatbelt and runs to his front door. James leaps out of the car after him and follows him through the front door.

He has never seen M like this before. Gone is the composed, collected M he knows, replaced by an ordinary man gripped with primal fear. He is screaming the names of his wife and children, and he is receiving no response. James ducks into the kitchen, but there is no sign of anyone there. He can hear M continuing to call out their names, his voice echoing eerily about the house and becoming more and more fearful each time he is answered with silence.

“Any sign of them?” M asks James when they meet in the corridor.

James shakes his head.

“They might have been taken, too. Let’s check upstairs before we make any conclusions, though.”

M nods, and they slowly ascend the staircase together.

Their search reveals that the children’s bedrooms are both empty. Now there is only one room left – the bedroom that M and his wife share.

Hesitantly, M opens the door.

They are greeted by a horrific sight.

M’s wife is lying glassy-eyed and motionless on the floor, three bullet wounds in her chest, garments stained dark with blood and limbs akimbo. Two smaller bodies are strewn limply on either side of her lifeless form – M’s children. One of them has been shot once in the side and once in the forehead, and the other has been shot several times in the back, probably as they were trying to run away.

“Oh, _God_ ,” M chokes out, “God, please, no…”

James steps back, turning his gaze away as M drops to his knees next to his dead wife and desperately cradles her in his arms, groping blindly for the bodies of his children. James listens to him weep like a lost child, and he realises that his own fists are clenched and shaking with rage at what has happened to M’s innocent family.

Both he and M are painfully aware of what has happened.

James has no doubt in his mind now that they are dealing with 009. This is a plot for revenge. James supposes that 009 thinks that if he can’t have a normal life, then it’s not fair that anyone else in MI6 should, either, M in particular. He remembers something that 009 had told him that day several years ago very clearly in his mind – something about MI6 having robbed him of a chance at a normal life.

_MI6 is sucking the life out of me. It's a parasite, sucking my bones dry, giving nothing in return. It took away every chance I had at a normal life, every possibility of ever being happy. And for what? So I could die in the filth of some country I don't even want to be in for the sake of an ungrateful lot of bureaucrats and their money? You know what I mean. You and I are very alike._

James feels quite disturbed. 009 had been right – they were more alike than he’d dare to admit. He had known exactly how 009 had felt. Everything he had described, everything about being unable to live a life of their own, all of it – he knew what it was like.

But he’d found a way to make it work, hadn’t he? The same could not be said for 009, however.

Suddenly, James feels very cold.

What if 009 knows about his current relationship with Q? There’s no reason to assume that he doesn’t, if he had so easily seen James’ affection for the boy in the past. Will he kill Q as well, once he’s served his purpose as part of his plan for revenge?

James has to find them before that can happen.

He’s already failed Q once. He absolutely cannot do it again.


End file.
